Top seed and defending champion Roger Federer wasted little time in finishing off Frenchman Sebastien Grosjean 6-2, 6-3, 7-6 (8/6) in Wimbledon’s rain-hit men’s semifinals on Saturday.
The 22-year-old Swiss player was up two sets and 4-3 on Friday evening when play was finally abandoned after a frustrating day of unsettled weather.
And he needed just a further 29 minutes and a tie-break to put Grosjean out of his misery on the resumption.
Federer must await the winner of the other semifinal between second seed Andy Roddick and Croatia’s Mario Ancic, which was rescheduled for the number-one court on Friday in an attempt to keep to schedule.
”I am very pleased. It is tough to stop at such a moment of the match,” he said.
”I am very relieved. Things were looking good, but he could have turned it around — a new day, new conditions.
”I had to come back in the tie-breaker and luckily for me I was able to turn it around.”
Federer had looked near his imperious best against the talented Grosjean for most of Friday’s action, playing an array of stunning shots between the showers to repel the Frenchman’s attacks.
He had looked set to wrap up the match in three sets when yet another drenching brought proceedings to a premature and disappointing end.
With the women’s final between Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova set to be the focal point of the day, Federer and Grosjean came out to cool and gusty conditions in front of a half-full centre court.
Grosjean came into the semis with a 2-1 career winning career record over Federer and had yet to drop a set in the tournament.
But Federer was on a 22-match unbeaten streak on grass and had looked at near his very best as he beat Australia’s Lleyton Hewitt in four sets in a top-quality quarterfinal.
Grosjean comfortably held his opening serve to level the set at 4-4 but with the sun finally peeking out from behind the clouds he had to save two match points at 4-5 down on both occasions with first-serve winners.
Two bad mishits and a double fault gave Grosjean a break point in the following game and he grabbed it with a deep forehand return that Federer hit long on the half-volley.
The Frenchman was unable to follow up on his own serve, but took a 4-0 lead in tie-break only for Federer to storm back.
Grosjean saved a third match point on the Federer serve at 6-5, but he could do nothing about it three points later when Federer hit a powerful return and followed up with a winning smash at the net. — Sapa-AFP