After a dramatic Australian Open quarter-final which included a medical break and a 7 matchpoint comeback, Roger Federer beat Tennys Sandgren in a 5 set game that now sees him through to the semi-finals.
Roger Federer started out strong winning the first set 3-6. Tennys Sandgren was able to take advantage of a number of unforced errors from Federer during the course of the second set to come out and level the match after winning the set 6-2.
Sangren looked as though he may be going through to his first Grand Slam semi-finals after edging a 2-0 advantage over Federer in the third set.
Federer’s chances of progressing through to the semi-finals seemed to shrink even more as he had to take a medical break when he was trailing 3-0 in the third set of the quarter-final match.
Upon his return to the court, Sandgren showed the third seed no mercy as he continued his dominance over Federer. Federer was able to hold off 5 set points but Sandgren managed to convert his 6th point to win him the set 6-2.
Sandgren etched ever closer to a career-high accomplishment as he found himself just moments away from beating Federer and reaching the Australian Open semi-finals, however with Federer serving at 4-5, it looked as nerves got the better of Sandgren who saw 3 match point opportunities disappear due to avoidable errors.
With the set now going to a tie break that saw Sandgren at 6/3, Federer was able to fight his way back and take the set 6-7 (8-10)
The final set of the quarter-final saw Sandgren trying to keep level with Federer but the consequences of his squandered points in the earlier set came back to haunt him as Federer got a new breath of life in him and went on to win the final set 3-6 sending him to the Australian Open semi-finals.
Even Federer seemed amazed at his own accomplishments going on to say:
”You’ve got to get lucky sometimes,”
“I was just hoping that maybe he wasn’t going to smash a winner, if he misses one or two [match points], who knows what’s going to happen? I think I got incredibly lucky today.”
”As the match went on, I started to feel better and just tried to play. I believe in miracles. There could be rain…Just let him finish me off in style, and he didn’t do that. I’m still standing here and obviously just very happy.”
Federer maintained his unbeaten quarter-finals record at the Australian Open with this being his 15th straight victory. He now faces Novak Djokovic or Milos Raonic in the semi-finals.
