Stan Wawrinka vs. Roger Federer takes place tonight in the semi-finals of the 2015 US Open.
This US Open match is scheduled to start at 00:30 BST.
In the UK, the match airs live on Sky Sports/Sky Sports 3 HD (and online here), while you can also watch and bet on live tennis with bet365 here:
Forget Swiss neutrality: tonight in New York is all about Swiss brutality as Federer and Wawrinka leave friendship at the entrance to the court and battle for a place in the US Open final.
It’s remarkable, given the supremacy Federer had once established over the fourth and final Grand Slam of the year, that the five-time US Open champion hasn’t reached the US Open final since 2009, when he lost in five sets to Juan Martin del Potro. Denied by Novak Djokovic in the semifinals in 2010 and 2011, Federer made two relatively early exits by his standards in 2012 and 2013, and when he returned to the semifinals in 2014, he was defeated by an inspired Marin Cilic, who blasted him off the court in straight sets.
In fact, you have to go back to 2011 to find the last time Federer made a Grand Slam final at any tournament outside of Wimbledon, and the 2010 Australian Open for the last time he made a hard-court Slam final. These facts are not insignificant.
There’s a kind of poetry in the fact that Federer faces Stan Wawrinka, whose career blossomed late after so many years in his compatriot’s shadow, in Friday’s semifinals. Wawrinka’s Grand Slam record compared to Federer’s is as lopsided as their head-to-head – 16-3 in Federer’s favour – but both have shifted dramatically in recent years.
‘It took him a while to figure out exactly what his possibilities were. I don’t think he was a guy who always, you know, had enough confidence,’ Federer said of Wawrinka’s improvement.
‘I always thought he was a better player than he actually was, but somehow something was holding him back maybe. I think only once when he really started to break through and he had some big wins […] Then I think in practice he started working to hit the ball harder consistently, and today he can consistently bring the power on forehand, backhand, and serve almost anybody when he gets hot.’
Since Federer won his last Grand Slam, at Wimbledon in 2012, Wawrinka has won two and reached two additional semifinals and four quarterfinals; quite the transformation for a man who had only reached two quarterfinals in his career to that point. Wawrinka has also scored two of his three victories over Federer in that period, at the Monte Carlo Masters in April 2014 and in the quarterfinals of this year’s French Open on his way to the title, with four of the remaining six matches they played in this time span not settled in straight sets.
‘I think now we both nervous when we enter the court. Before it was only me. I was nervous because I knew I wasn’t at his level, for sure,’ Wawrinka said of his matches against Federer.
‘And now I think we can see that he was also nervous every time we play each other the past few years. That’s a big difference, because that show how much he knows that I can play at his level, how much he knows that I can try to play my game and not just try to react about what he’s doing.’
All three of Wawrinka’s victories against Federer have come on clay courts, often in slow, damp conditions. Federer on a quicker Arthur Ashe Stadium will be an entirely different proposition – especially given the way that the second seed has been playing. Federer came into the US Open on the back of a victory at the Cincinnati Masters and is the only player still alive in the draw not to have dropped a set (Wawrinka has lost just one, to Donald Young).
Both players have really been crushing all opposition so far at the US Open, with Wawrinka even imitating Federer’s new aggressive returning technique – SABR, or Sneak Attack Behind Return – in his last match against Kevin Anderson. Federer has been playing at a higher level, with Wawrinka more just getting through his matches before raising his level somewhat in his last two matches, but that could mean the fifth seed is peaking at the right time – and that Federer could be unprepared for his first serious opposition, something we’ve seen with him at Grand Slams recently where he cruises until it matters.
We know how Federer is going to play: He’s going to play the same super-attacking tennis which has got him to this point. And we know how Wawrinka will have to play; big, big on every shot, to try to dominate and take the initiative from the first ball. He did it superbly in the quarterfinals of the French Open, but it will be much more difficult for him in New York. The match-up looks far too close to be settled in straight sets but Federer is much more comfortable with the kind of tennis he’s going to need to play than Wawrinka is and, if the five-time US Open champion can manage his nerves, that might be what sees him into his first US Open final for six years.
