Federer into eighth straight Open semi

Roger Federer cruised into his eighth consecutive Australian Open semi-final with a dominating straight-sets victory over his Swiss teammate Stanislas Wawrinka on Tuesday.
It was a no-contest as the all-time Grand Slam champion cantered to a 6-1, 6-3, 6-3 win against the over-awed Wawrinka in just 1hr 47 min on Rod Laver Arena.
Federer will now take on either 2008 champion Novak Djokovic or Czech sixth seed Tomas Berdych in Thursday’s semi-final.
Tuesday’s success extended Federer’s winning streak to
15 and a record 59th match win at the Australian Open.
“I definitely needed a good performance and I’ve obviously played Stan many times in practice and in matches and there were no real secrets out there for either of us,” Federer said.
“I think the start was really crucial. It may have been a battle for him to get used to the conditions after playing two such great matches at night.
“I am very happy with the way I played, I was able to mix it up and that’s how I play my best usually.”
The pair won the men’s doubles gold medal for Switzerland at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
From the outset, Federer was never going to lose and he broke Wawrinka’s serve five times and won a high 72 percent of his first serves and 76 percent of his second serves.
The 16-time major champion hit 29 winners and dominated the match points 90-66.
Federer broke the misfiring Wawrinka twice in taking the opening set which lasted just 29 minutes.
Wawrinka had two break points in the sixth game of the second set but badly missed the next three points to pass up the chance, and then with his confidence down easily gave up his service to hand Federer a break.
Wawrinka, clearly lacking the belief that he could beat his Swiss Davis Cup teammate, surrendered the set with his fourth service break with a bad backhand miss.
He was given a code violation for racquet abuse when he angrily slammed his racquet into the court as he gave up another service break early in the third set.
Wawrinka was a shadow of the player who ripped apart Andy Roddick in straight sets in Sunday’s night match, mis-hitting his groundstrokes and failing to put any pressure on Federer.
Wawrinka found the faster day-time conditions not to his liking after winning both his previous two matches in the heavier, cooler night atmospherics.
In contrast with when he was on the foot front against Roddick, he was pushed behind the baseline in rallies with Federer.