Ah, sometimes you want to play tennis so bad, that you hope a mini-excursion out will still leave you enough tennis to watch.  Except, alas, a 4 hour excursion left me missing both the Federer win over Wawrinka, then the rest of what must have been only an hour, followed by a doubles match that went 7-5, 6-3 to the Swiss duo concluding literally minutes before I turned on the TV.  Such is my luck.

There is a chance that Federer could meet Nadal in singles too, but these days, Novak Djokovic appears to be the hottest player in tennis.  He’s beaten Roger Federer twice.  He hasn’t lost in 2011.  But Djokovic has yet to play Nadal this year.

And who knows how far del Potro’s comeback has come.  del Potro hasn’t beaten a top 4 player, so his match against Nadal, which he’s expected to lose (or is he?) will be a good gauge of how much work he’s got left.  del Potro is doing surprisingly well.  I think few people (including me) expected him to be back this good this quick.

Federer has a bigger task ahead of him which is trying to figure out how to beat Djokovic.  Typically, Federer tries to attack Djokovic, but it’s looking like Agassi trying to out hit Sampras and Sampras showing he can last in a long rally.

Clearly, the win means more to Federer than it does to Djokovic, but Federer hasn’t shown that he is playing that much better than he has been.  That is, he’s playing solid, good enough to win.  But is he playing brilliant?  Is that what he needs?

The four semifinalists are also the winners of the Slams going back some number of years.  I believe the last player that isn’t one of these four to win a Slam is Marat Safin about 5 years ago winning the Australian Open.

In any case, nice to see some doubles by the top player.  Can Federer pull off the double double?  Win singles and doubles?  His chances, oddly enough, seem better in doubles than singles.

Novak Djokovic made quick work of Richard Gasquet, and will face Fed in the semis.