No, no, Roger, give yourself a hand. Some people point to Roger Federer as the Cal Ripken of tennis. Cal Ripken, a baseball player for the Baltimore Orioles, played in 2,632 games in a row. Many have said that Ripken did the equivalent of showing up to work, which, in a sense, he did. But given the athletic nature of sports, it really speaks to both Ripken’s health and to his value for the team.

This record’s different. You see, Roger has to win matches to make it to the Grand Slam semifinal. He has to win on all surfaces, against all sorts of opponents, whether he’s feeling good or not.

Ivo Karlovic is one of those danger opponents. On any given day, Roger Federer should beat Ivo Karlovic. But to do so, Federer must serve consistently well, not miss too many first serves, and take advantage of the few opportunities that Karlovic presents him. Karlovic has been accused of being all serve, an argument one might make of Pete Sampras except Sampras had a few other nice shots to back up his tremendous serve. Indeed, if Karlovic had a serious ground game, he’d be like a modern day Sampras.

Karlovic isn’t an idiot savant, hitting his serve with genius while the rest of his game is total mediocrity. He was world class groundstrokes and volleys. But, world class goes several hundred deep. Karlovic can hit a hard forehand. He volleys reasonably well. His backhand and return are liabilities. But because his forehand and volleys are generally good, if he can play well, he can knock players out, as he did with Tsonga and Verdasco.

Federer’s ability to handle Karlovic lies in his remarkable ability to see his serve better than almost anyone on the planet, and even then, Federer whiffs a lot at Karlovic’s serve. Federer doesn’t stand 12 feet back to receive. He is maybe 2-3 feet behind the baseline, looking for 2nd serve opportunties, or to block back a big serve.

Now realize that Karlovic is not only a huge server, but he is a consistent server. Karlovic has averaged 70% first serves coming into this quarterfinal matchup. 70% with bombs like his. He’d lose more often if he served, say, 55%. Indeed, nerves must have played a little part since his serve percentage dropped to 60%. One serve out of ten is enough to give Roger a few more looks.

Even so, Roger only managed one break in the first, early on, one break in the second, late on, and had to play a tiebreak in the third. Roger’s concentration on his own serve is so complete that his serve looked positively Karlovic-esque. To be fair, Karlovic is not a brilliant returner, and so Roger gets so many more free points on his serve against Karlovic, who can’t solve Fed’s kick to his backhand.

Final score: 6-3, 7-5, 7-6(3).

Roger makes yet another Grand Slam semifinals.

And his opponent?

If you had to look at the top four players and point to the one that seems the most fragile mentally, lately, this would be Novak Djokovic. Andy Murray, for his part, generally doesn’t have bad losses. His opponents have had to beat him. Djokovic, however, retired in the Australian Open, lost in the 3rd round of the French Open, after being heavily favored to make it to the semifinals of the French, and lost to Tommy Haas at Halle, 6-1 in the third set.

Djokovic knows he’s plenty talented, but can he win the tight matches? How’s his mental tenacity? He plays well against the big players, like Federer and Nadal, but what about everyone else.

Djokovic had to face Haas again, and you would think he would be ready to beat him at this bigger stage. For his part, Haas, at 31, is having a mini-resurgence in his career. Haas has had numerous injuries that have kept him out of the game, but has stayed relatively healthy as of late. Along with Juan Martin del Potro, Haas gave Federer the most trouble in Paris. He had a break point on Federer’s serve, which Federer erased with an inside out forehand, and eventually fell to the mighty Swiss in five sets.

But Haas is also a crafty veteran. He was once ranked as high as number 2 in the world with expectations that he would be the new Boris Becker. While injuries prevented him from reaching that lofty goal, he has become a recent threat.

Haas wins in four sets over Djokovic: 7-5, 7-6(6), 4-6, 6-3.

This means Roger Federer will have a rematch of his French Open fourth round match, but this time, it’s the semifinals.

Andy Murray was expected to have the easiest of the four quarterfinal matches. Although Ferrero was former number 1, his ranking had slipped, he had lost to Murray easily in Queen’s, and so no one felt Ferrero could challenge Murray. So far, they are right. Murray has won the first two sets, 7-5 and 6-3, and is up a break in the third, leading 4-2.

In the other Andy match, Andy Roddick has taken the first set 6-3, but he is down 4-1 in the second against Lleyton Hewitt. Will this be another upset?