rogerfederer.com - In semis with ease

In semis with ease

In his home tournament, defending champion Roger  remains on course – on course for the final. In his quarter-final, our all-time record holder with 17 Grand Slam wins defeated his first Frenchman of the tournament, Benoit Paire, 6-2,6-2. In the second semi-final, the unbeatable Swiss now faces another French opponent, wild card recipient and ATP number 101 Paul-Henri Mathieu, who overcame Bulgaria’s Grigor Dimitrov in a fierce encounter. But Roger  was taking no chances in front of his sold-out public, sweeping the opening set against Paire in 29 minutes with two breaks.The second set was equally brief as Federer moved within two wins of his seventh trophy of the season.He broke Paire's first two service games and sent over a pair of aces for a 5-1 lead before closing it out.

"It was a good match for me and I'm pleased to be back in the semi-finals," said the world number one."It cannot have been easy for him playing a top 10 player. I had to play aggressive, but by the fourth game of the match, I knew what I had to do."I'm looking forward to playing Paul-Henri, he's from my generation. It's good to see him back as well after his knee problems. I'm looking forward to the match."

This was vintage Roger at his entertaining best – on this form he will be very hard to stop as he laid down a solid challenge to the remaining contestants of the Basel Open.