Much like his match against Tomas Berdych, Roger Federer started this match on fire.  He was helped by a completely erratic Djokovic who came out hitting hard and missing just as hard.  Backhands were flying long, into the net, and it was easily the worst Djokovic has looked in a while.  Federer bulldozed to a 6-1 first set and looked like he’d win in an hour.

With Djokovic down 2-0 in the second, it looked like Federer’s ticket to the finals was a foregone conclusion.  But Djokovic started to control the ball better and use his forehand to hit inside out winners and was able to get the break back.  At 3-all, Djokovic found himself in a game that was lasting as long as the first set, with numerous deuces, with Roger again threatening to break and close out the second set, but much like his match against Berdych, Roger couldn’t make good on his opportunities to break.  Djokovic would gain a late break in the second set to take it 6-3.

Unlike the Berdych match, Federer got a break early in the fourth set, and again, Federer looked like he might be able to win the third set, but Djokovic broke back.  Federer was down 15-40 at 5-all, and it looked like Djokovic might break and win the match, but Fed dug deep and got out that game with a hold.  Then it was Djokovic that looked like he was in trouble on his own serve, but then he got it to deuce.  Fed eventually got to a match point with Djokovic attacking Fed’s backhand with inside out forehands, and then hit the net to give the match to Fed, 7-5.

This match was rather crazy with Fed starting off well and Djokovic playing very poorly, but then he turned his game around with aggression, especially on his forehand.  Fed contributed with errors of his own to give Djokovic a chance.  Overall, Federer is hitting much better off the ground that he was a few months ago, hitting with pace, and getting into long rallies.  He still mishits as he is wont to do, and still makes a lot of unforced errors, but still gets the win.

In the post match interview, Roger Federer forecasted a bit of an excuse saying he was banged up a little and that Murray had an advantage and played a good match to beat Nadal, but that he’d be ready to play on Sunday.  The final is pretty early, being held at 1:30 Eastern time.

An interesting addendum to last night’s Fed-Berdych match.  ESPN2 hadn’t planned to cover that match, but the women’s match had ended early, and so they went to cover the match sensing it was a big match.  ESPN2 was supposed to head over to Friday Night Fights, a live boxing show at 9 PM, but the match took about another 40 or so minutes to complete.  Rather than cut to boxing, ESPN2 not only stayed with tennis, but told the boxers they had to wait an hour.  Guess it shows how much boxing has declined that it now takes a second seat to tennis.  It also shows great presence by ESPN2 to understand the importance of this match.  This is clearly something NBC would never do.  It would make its decisions by bureaucracy, not by the how important the match is to fans.

Also, unusually enough, Rafael Nadal came to watch some of the match live, even though he had been eliminated earlier in the day.

Perhaps much like the 2008 US Open finals, Andy Murray will face Roger Federer except this time, Roger is ranked 3, and not 1.  The big question is whether Murray will play Roger using this aggressive style.  He rarely plays Roger using his “Nadal” strategy, but he’s played the “Nadal” strategy twice (once against Nalbandian and once against Nadal).  Federer can be such a streaky player that if he gets on a roll, it’s hard to stop, but he can also get off a roll, too, as he did against Berdych and Djokovic (partly because these two players just played better and Federer’s game went off a notch).

Roger probably has the edge, which means Andy Murray will have another chip on his shoulder, and want to prove to the world that he can beat the best in the world.