Federer off to semifinals at Swiss Indoors
Two out of three Swiss tennis players marched through the quarter finals of the Swiss Indoors Tournament on Friday with wins for Roger Federer and Marco Chiudinelli.
Stanislas Wawrinka could not make for a Swiss tennis trifecta when the Lausanne player fell to Serbian Novak Djokovic 6:3, 6:7 (5), 2:6 for the sixth consecutive time. Wawrinka is ranked 21st. Djokovis is third.
Federer, the world's number one player, beat Russia's Evgeny Korolev, ranked 58th, 6:3, 6:2 in just under an hour. Federer amassed seven aces to Korolev's three and converted 78 per cent of his first serves into points. Korolev struggled with unforced errors, committing 12 to Federer's seven.
Chiudinelli beat Frenchman Richard Gasquet, 6:3, 6:7 at the hard-court contest in just over an hour.
The wins for the Swiss set up a semi-final match between Federer and Chiudinelli, both of whom hail from Basel. Djokovic now faces Radek Stepanek of the Czech Republic.
The quarterfinals on Friday marked for the first time since 2001 that three Swiss had made it so far in a tournament.
The only previous time so many Swiss advanced to the quarters of an ATP tournament was also in Basel eight years ago when Federer, George Bastl and Michel Kratochvil made it.
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