“At the end of the day today what makes me nervous is really legends of our sport”.
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Federer holds the 9-2 lifetime edge against Raonic, but the Canadian is eager for another chance to prove his worth on the biggest stage in tennis.
“When you’re down two sets to love, three all, love-40, it’s a moment when it’s not in your control anymore”, Federer said after setting up a semi-final with Canadian Milos Raonic.
It was Federer’s latest Wimbledon theatrics that had the All England Club abuzz as he came from two sets down to win for the 10th time in his glittering career. He’s one of the nicest guys on the tour, so I feel sorry for him.
No wonder, his opponents will try and get in more and more celebrities the next time they play Federer!
The 30-year-old, who blasted Pouille off Court One with 35 winners and 10 aces, will play former Wimbledon champion Andy Murray or French 12th seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in Friday’s semifinals. To achieve those things you have to face off against the best players at the best tournaments.
“I just tried to use all my energy at the start of the fifth set to get myself pumped up and thankfully I got the early break and managed to hang onto it”.
Berdych is one win away from reaching his second Grand Slam final six years after losing to Rafael Nadal in the Wimbledon title match.
But after Federer wriggled out with the third set and lived dangerously when he served at 4-5 and 5-6, facing match points in the fourth, the two players went to a tiebreaker.
Those are the words TV commentators for the BBC used to describe the old style of tennis Milos Raonic used to play.
“John called the entire match”, Raonic said.
Querrey only earned two break points all afternoon, converting one.
And he came to Wimbledon with only a 16-6 match record and zero titles in 2016, the first time since 2000 that he went this far into a season without winning a tournament.
The fifth set? It came down to an anticlimactic break of Cilic’s serve in the eighth game on a wide forehand.
A repeat of that straight-sets humiliation suffered by Federer at Flushing Meadows almost two years ago looked on the cards after Cilic won a lopsided first-set tiebreak then broke early in the second to take a stunning two-sets-to-love lead.
World number three Roger Federer said he was “ecstatic” after he saved three match points to beat Marin Cilic and reach the Wimbledon semi-finals.
“Ideally, I don’t want to have him dictating all of the points because then I’ll be doing a lot of running”.
Since hiring McEnroe, Raonic has made it to the semifinals on the clay courts at the French Open – losing a five-setter to Andy Murray – and now he has done it again on the Wimbledon grass.
It was his first comeback from such a deficit since he saved two match points to defeat Gael Monfils at the 2014 US Open and his first at the All England Club since 2012 when he overhauled Julien Benneteau in another Centre Court thriller.
Cilic had three other opportunities to close out the match but Federer just refused to lose.
Weaknesses: For return points won vs. first serve, Raonic has only a 25 per cent success rate in his first five matches. Raonic’s serve has hit a top speed of 143 miles per hour at this tournament and he has lost only four of his 94 service games. “But he fought right until the end and it was a great match”.
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Cilic, a big-serving Croatian, leads the seven-time champion 7-6 (4), 6-4.
