He does not know when to lie down and as a soon as doubts crept into the Croat’s mind at the end of that seventh game in the third set, Federer was ready to pounce.
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Novak Djokovic is out of Wimbledon and the remaining eight players all feel like they have a shot at claiming a Grand Slam title. Now it’s Federer to waste two set points, somehow he takes the set by 11-9 with the heart of a champion. “I was just very happy that I actually felt as strong as I did, mentally and physically when I was down two sets to love”.
“Everything kind of went very quickly”.
Cilic, the ninth seed, has never faced Federer on grass, and is attempting to make the semi-finals at the All England Club for the first time. A disgruntled Ivanisevic declined an interview request about half an hour after the classic concluded. And Pouille just won his first 5-set match on Monday 10-8 in the fifth.
FEDERER VS. CILIC: Federer is 5-1 against Cilic, but it’s the one loss that still hurts.
“That switched, a little bit, the momentum”, conceded Cilic, who was 52-0 at majors after taking the first two sets. I didn’t play poorly in any way. That was pretty much a shame.
“Enjoy every nail-biting rally, booming ace and hotly contested game point as the best tennis players duke it out for the most prestigious title of the season”, the cinema said in a press release. “Hopefully I can win a couple more”.
However, it could yet be the 35 year-old world number three Federer. His forehand reply made life awkward for Cilic, who proceeded to send his forehand wide.
After reaching the final of Roland Garros and winning a record fifth Aegon Championships title at Queen’s Club, Murray is yet to drop a set at SW19. On Friday, he’ll face Canadian Milos Raonic, who he’s beaten nine out of 11 times, including at Wimbledon in 2014.
But breaking serve early in the third gave the 12th seed belief that a comeback to rival the one he managed against Roger Federer at the same stage in 2011 was possible.
Raonic will be out to tame Federer in the semis. His serve is even more potent than Cilic’s, he is a more seasoned competitor and the Canadian – formerly guided by Federer’s current coach Ivan Ljubicic – topped Federer in their lone meeting this year in Brisbane in January.
Murray ranted with himself and umpire Fergus Murphy as he went completely off the boil and Tsonga levelled an increasingly tense quarter-final.
But Federer saved all three to hold serve, broke Cilic in the next game and the pendulum suddenly swung Federer’s way. “I’m glad I was able to get back on the right path after he won the third”, Raonic said. “I know how to sort of turn things around to get them on my terms”. I do like him a lot.
On Wednesday, Murray won a tough first set against Tsonga and then easily took the second. In the second set the type of rallies was nearly the same, with the only expection that by the back of the court Cilic plays better: Roger struggled much and when he does not put the first serve IN, he is in trouble like in the third game, where the No. 9 seed breaks Roger and holds all his serve games.
In another quarterfinal, Milos Raonic won the first set 6-4 over Sam Querrey.
The 25-year-old will hope it is third time lucky after losing his previous two Grand Slam semi-finals. So when he held a break point in the opening game, things were looking bleak for Murray. Whether he can navigate his way through and set-up a semi-final showdown with either Tomas Berdych or Lucas Pouille is another matter. Berdych attempted to hire Lendl near the end of 2014 but was rebuffed.
Murray had to dig deep to make it into the last four.
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“I approached Ivan when he stopped with Andy first time”, Berdych said. “He basically says that he doesn’t have the time and he don’t want to be involved in tennis”. Both came back, and here we are.
