The semifinals are set for Basel and Valencia.

Basel is Federer’s home tournament, no doubt one reason it is an ATP 500 event.

Fortunately for tournament organizers, Federer is still in the tournament.  The semifinals include Roger Federer playing Andy Roddick and Novak Djokovic playing Victor Troicki.

Let’s took at the top of the draw.  Roger Federer played Radek Stepanek.  Stepanek is a tricky player.  Unlike most players that prefer playing at the baseline, Stepanek loves coming to net, and he plays smart tennis.  However, other than his strength at net, he lacks some weapons to play from the baseline.  It says something about Federer’s immense talent that he transformed himself from a serve and volleyer, into a top baseliner.  By contrast, Stepanek looks rather ordinary from the baseline, and isn’t going to scare anyone with winners from the back court.

Stepanek, in any case, missed much of 2010 with an injury.  Fortunately for Stepanek, clay and grass aren’t his strength, hardcourts are.  So he returned fairly recently and is trying to get his game in gear.  Even so, Federer, who has played the entire year, was in much better form and had an easy win (though he claimed otherwise) to reach the semifinals.

Much like last year, Andy Roddick suffered an injury at Shanghai.  Unlike last year, it wasn’t a season ending injury.  Roddick admitted he lacked practice, and had no idea what to expect heading into Basel.  However, Nalbandian, who had a great summer heading into the US Open (where he fared OK, but not great), had a rough few weeks after the US Open.  Basel has been his best performance since a breakout performance at DC.  Even so, Roddick used his trusty weapon, the serve, and an aggressive mindset on second serve returns to win a tight match against the Argentine.

Roddick gets to face longtime rival, Roger Federer.  The pair have met some 20 times, but Roddick has rarely been the winner, winning fewer times than fingers on a hand.  Roddick has to be thrilled with a semifinal appearance at an ATP 500 event and a win over American rival, Sam Querrey, but he’s probably not ready to topple the mighty Swede who has shown reasonably good form since returning back to tour in Shanghai and reaching the finals.

On the flip side, Djokovic is still marching on to a title defense.  He faces countryman, Victor Troicki.  Unlike most Serbs–or Croatians, for that matter–Troicki’s name does not end with the usual “ic”, but that is mostly because his father is Russian, not Serbian.  Troicki won his first tournament ever in St. Petersburg, in the home country of his father.  He readily admits that this is the best he’s played in his career.  Yet, post-US Open tournament play is Djokovic’s wheelhouse.

Troicki had one of his better results against Djokovic in the opening round of the US Open.  Djokovic needed five sets to beat his compatriot.  Troicki is going to feel good against Djokovic but Djokovic had an easy win over talented Dutchman, Robin Haase, who gave Nadal all sorts of trouble at Wimbledon.

Nadal, news reports say, won’t play Paris due to shoulder problems, aggravated, Nadal claims, by zealous practicing of his serve.

In Valencia, Soderling had an easy win over Monfils, Spaniard David Ferrer beat Italian Potito Starace.  The two will face in the more interesting of the two semifinals in Valencia.

Nikolay Davydenko is still trying to regain form, but lost in 3 sets to Gilles Simon who had an amazing second-half of 2008, only to play dismally for about 18 months afterwards.  Simon may be regaining the form that lead him to a top-ten spot.  He’ll play Spaniard Marcel Granollers who upset Juan Monaco, the Argentine that ousted defending champ, Andy Murray.