US OPEN – Perhaps after the dramatic upset of Serena Williams (1)by Roberta Vinci earlier in the day and the would be crowning glory of these championships, a calendar grand slam for an American at an American major tournament, went by the wayside, everything else just became mundane.The men’s semifinals just did not have any dramatic flair or panache to them at all as they were both straight sets affairs. It might also be the fact that the both Novak Djokovic (1) and Roger Federer (2) saw the top 2 seeds on the women’s side exited in the semifinals in spectacular style that they felt it necessary to get through their matches in quick time. After Djokovic routed Marin Cilic (9) 6-0 6-1 6-2 in just 1 hour and 25 minutes, Federer comfortably moved passed his countryman Stan Wawrinka (5) 6-4 6-3 6-1 in an hour and 32 minutes. A 6th Djokovic v Federer final is on tap for the year. Djokovic is 3-2 for the year and 20-21 lifetime.
In the opening two games of the match, it looked like Wawrinka was going to pull off another upset win over Federer as he did last time they met at the French Open quarterfinals. Wawrinka held serve with ease for 1-0. On the other hand, Federer had all sorts of trouble getting on the scoreboard. Wawrinka was hitting hard and deep. Federer was constantly on the backfoot and soon had a breakpoint on his serve. In the end, he closed out the 13-point game to level it at 1-1. At this point in the match, there was a noticeable shift in momentum; Federer’s level began to rise whereas Wawrinka’s dipped. Wawrinka, up 30-0 on his serve, lost his way as he committed 4 straight errors to give Federer the break. Federer quickly got to 3-1. Wawrinka steadied his ship by holding serve for 2-3 and saw triple break points in the 6th game. However, all three quickly disappeared as Federer brought out his serving game online and closed out the game for 4-2. Federer maintained this lead to close out the set when Wawrinka’s forehand went long, 6-4 Federer in 36 minutes.
In the 2nd set, it became quite clear that Wawrinka’s serve was not helping him in the match. At the end of the day, Wawrinka only got 49% of his first serves in play and only won 58% of those points and just half of the points on his second serve. Federer on the other hand got 65% of the first serves in play, won 80% of those points and 63% of his second serves. Thus Wawrinka was having to constantly defend his serve whereas Federer coasted. Warwinka thrice went down 0-40 on his service game and whereas he was able to fend off those break points to hold serve for 3-2, he never recovered the other two times. Federer won the set 6-3 having won the last 16/17 points.
Facing a 0-2 sets deficit, Wawrinka soon became despondent on court. Federer was definitely playing on a much higher level than he was. Nothing he did made any impact of Federer’s game. His serve was unreliable and his groundstrokes were being returned with interested and often Wawrinka just simply looked lost on court. The reigning French Open champion was making far too many unforced errors. He would go on to make 30 for the match compared to 17 from Federer who simply seemed to have all the answers. “For sure it doesn’t help when you play Roger and he’s trying to play really aggressive, really fast. When he get the lead, when he get the break, then he’s relaxed. The way he’s playing he’s reading better, moving better, so everything going faster, that’s for sure,” Wawrinka said after the match. The 3rd set was routing, Federer took control of the match after 1-1 to take the last 5 games and get into this 7th US Open finals, first since 2009. Were Federer to win on Sunday, it would be his 6th US Open title and 18th overall major title.
