Federer's one game from glory

12 April 2012

Roger Federer remains on course for a fifth straight Wimbledon title after beating France's Richard Gasquet in the semi-finals on Saturday.

Federer was made to fight hard in the first set before finding top gear to ease to a 7-5 6-3 6-4 victory and his ninth consecutive Grand Slam final.

It was the defending champion's 53rd consecutive victory on grass, 33 of those coming at the All England Club, and sets up a repeat of last year's final against French Open champion Rafael Nadal.

"I was thinking he was going to play very, very well and I was ready for that," Federer said.

"The first set was crucial, he should have got to a tie-break if not even won it, but I came out somehow and played really for 10 minutes and it was pretty much it after that.

"The first final is still the most special, I played incredible tennis that day.

"Now it's become sort of a routine but I'm so excited to be back into the finals."

Gasquet initially showed no ill-effects of last night's thrilling five-set victory over third seed Andy Roddick in the quarter-finals, forcing Federer to save three break points to keep his nose in front in bright sunshine on Centre Court.

But as soon as Federer raised his game when it mattered most to break in the 12th game of the set, the Frenchman looked a broken man, not helped by the noon start time today.

Watched by Bjorn Borg, the man whose record he is aiming to equal, Federer clearly took heart from that hard-fought success and broke Gasquet early in the second set for a 2-0 lead.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in