{"id":1566,"date":"2017-01-25T16:16:21","date_gmt":"2017-01-25T21:16:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordontennis.com\/?p=1566"},"modified":"2017-01-25T16:16:21","modified_gmt":"2017-01-25T21:16:21","slug":"roger-federer-breezes-into-semifinals-of-the-australian-open-with-straight-sets-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2017\/01\/25\/roger-federer-breezes-into-semifinals-of-the-australian-open-with-straight-sets-win\/","title":{"rendered":"Roger Federer Breezes Into Semifinals of the Australian Open With Straight Sets Win"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Roger Federer&#8217;s<\/strong>\u00a0great\u00a0run continued Wednesday night as the four-time <strong>Australian Open<\/strong>\u00a0champion routined <strong>Mischa Zverev<\/strong>\u00a06-1, 7-5, 6-2 in one hour and 32 minutes to reach his 13th semifinal in the last 14 years in Melbourne.\u00a0At 35-years-old, Federer becomes the oldest man into a semifinal in Melbourne since <strong>Arthur Ashe<\/strong> in 1978.<\/p>\n<p>Federer was right from the off against the German, taking the opening set 6-1 in only 19 minutes, one minute shy of the tournament record. the 17-time Grand Slam champion\u00a0held nothing back, slapping winners left and right past Zverev, who continued to employ his serve-and-volley tactics.<\/p>\n<p>The second set, however, was much more competitive as the world number 50 went toe-to-toe with the world number 17. Zverev even broke Federer midway through the set, yet the Swiss got back on serve before taking the set 7-5.<\/p>\n<p>The third set was much of the same as Federer used a late break to seal his victory. In the end, Federer hit 65 winners as compared to only 13 unforced errors, a remarkable statline.<\/p>\n<p>Federer spoke following the match:\u00a0<em>\u201cI&#8217;m pleased with the way I started the match,\u201d<\/em> Federer said after the match. <em>\u201cRight away again got off to a great start against him, like I did against him a few years ago. After that, naturally everything&#8217;s easier. It was a nice match. I think I played great. Mischa had a wonderful tournament, so well done to him.<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/632557520\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 66.666667% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/632557520?et=gmCG7amrT1BcC8vVvwVCkw&amp;viewMoreLink=off&amp;sig=Mi6X-TbdcREPvMbgayDngtmphcZUPJB_zZx4FcftHN0=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n<p><em>\u201cI&#8217;m happy I played as well as I played,\u201d<\/em> Federer said on the court after his match. <em>\u201cNever thought I&#8217;d play as well as I did here. I am still standing.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Zverev also addressed his magical run to his first career Grand Slam quarterfinal:\u00a0<em>\u201cOf course, it&#8217;s a positive,\u201d<\/em> Zverev said. <em>\u201cFirst time I&#8217;ve ever been in a quarter. There&#8217;s a lot of positive things I can take with me, hopefully take with me through the whole season, use the confidence to do well in many more tournaments to come.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cI think, yeah, it was a<\/em> great<em> 10 days in Melbourne,\u201d<\/em> the German continued. <em>\u201cI really enjoyed it here. The whole family was there. I played, I think, decent tennis.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Federer&#8217;s semifinal opponent will be his countryman and 2014\u00a0<strong>Australian Open\u00a0<\/strong>champion\u00a0<strong>Stan Wawrinka,\u00a0<\/strong>seeded 4th. Federer has dominated their rivalry 18-3, including a win in the 2015\u00a0<strong>U.S. Open\u00a0<\/strong>semifinals while one of Wawrinka&#8217;s three wins came at a major, the 2015\u00a0<strong>French Open\u00a0<\/strong>quarterfinals, a tournament he would go on to win.<\/p>\n<p>Federer spoke about his compatriot reaching the last four and playing him:\u00a0<em>\u201cIf someone would have told me I&#8217;d play in the semis against Stan, never would I have called that one for me,\u201d<\/em> Federer said. <em>\u201cFor Stan, yes, but not for me. I honestly didn&#8217;t even know a few days ago that he was in my section of the draw or I&#8217;m in his section.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This is the first all-Swiss semifinal in Australian Open history and if form holds up, it should be a brilliant affair. The match will take place on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/632559278\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 67.508418% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/632559278?et=J3VVxtYaTo9j6VSUkE1cjg&amp;viewMoreLink=off&amp;sig=5IMQQezdhsWFaNq-AtO1jjBFNnTumcjO4tWdbd8kG6Q=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"401\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Roger Federer&#8217;s\u00a0great\u00a0run continued Wednesday night as the four-time Australian Open\u00a0champion routined Mischa Zverev\u00a06-1, 7-5, 6-2 in one hour and 32 minutes to reach his 13th semifinal in the last 14 years in Melbourne.\u00a0At 35-years-old, Federer becomes the oldest man into a semifinal in Melbourne since Arthur Ashe in 1978. Federer was right from the off [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":755,"featured_media":1591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,3],"tags":[385,205,601,114,115],"class_list":["post-1566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australian-open","category-atp","tag-2017-australian-open","tag-australian-open","tag-mischa-zverev","tag-roger-federer","tag-stan-wawrinka"],"modified_by":"Steen Kirby","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/755"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}