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Federer storms into Basel Semis, Djokovic struggles

By RobPeterson (TennisEarth.com), Submitted On

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As Federer breezed past his opponent, Serbian Novak Djokovic was made to sweat in the spine-chilling climate of Basel, Switzerland as the quarterfinals day saw its finish.

Top seed and World Number One Roger Federer continued his solid form at the home-tournament with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Russian Evgeny Korolev to reach the semifinals of the 2009 Davidoff Swiss Indoors, being played here in Basel, Switzerland.

Federer, who has had an amazing year with two Grand Slam titles and two Masters series 1000 shields (Madrid & Cincinnati ), is looking to win the fifth title of the year and will now face compatriot Marco Chiudinelli, who breezed past Frenchman Richard Gasquet 6-1, 6-3 in just 61 minutes to secure the semifinal spot against the tennis legend.

The other semifinal wil be played between Czech Radek Stepanek and Serbian Novak Djokovic, who both registered hard-fought wins over their respective opponents to reach the last four.

Novak Djokovic survived an opening set loss to post a 3-6, 7-6(5), 6-2 win over Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka, winning the two hours and 13 minutes marathon after withstanding 13 aces by the local star. Djokovic got nine break point opportunities and managed to clinch three of them to post the hard fought win as opposed to the notion that was set against the Serbian when he was on the verge of losing in the second set.

Stepanek, on the other hand, had a much safer entry to the semifinals when recovered from a set deficit to post a 4-6, 6-3 6-3 win over Croat Marin Cilic to make it to the last four.