Federer Salvages Bid for Olympic Medal

From the Associated Press:

A fired-up Roger Federer salvaged his bid for an Olympic medal Friday, joining Swiss teammate Stanislas Wawrinka to beat Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi of India 6-2, 6-4 in the quarterfinals.

Federer carried the Swiss duo over the seventh-seeded Indians, completing a match that was suspended overnight because of rain and resumed 15 hours later.

"They both came up guns-a-blazing," Paes said. "We got stuck with Roger just playing unbelievable tennis."

It was a turnaround from the night before, when Federer put on a lackluster performance in his singles quarterfinal against James Blake and was eliminated in straight sets.

Just a few hours after that loss, Federer picked up his racket to play doubles. He and Wawrinka led 4-0 in the first set when it started raining.

When the match resumed Friday afternoon under the first blue sky of the Beijing Games, the crowd gave Federer a standing ovation.

Federer got off to a slow start, sending forehands from the baseline into the net and flubbing a few service returns. But once he found his stride, he displayed some of his trademark elegance, delivering angled winners to out-of-reach corners and outfoxing his opponents -- which according to Federer wasn't too difficult.

"We expected it to be much tougher," Federer said. "But we have a great challenge ahead of us coming up."

Rounding out two tennis-packed days, the Swiss pair was scheduled to face top-seeded American twins Mike and Bob Bryan in the semifinals later Friday.

The Bryan brothers, who have been playing tennis since the age of 2, have won 48 titles together but never an Olympic medal. The twins reached the doubles quarterfinals in Athens four years ago.

The winning pair faces Sweden's unseeded Simon Aspelin and Joachim Johansson in the final. The Swedes, who are assured at least a silver medal, won a riveting 4-hour, 45-minute semifinal against French duo Arnaud Clement and Michael Llodra, 7-6 (6), 4-6, 19-17.

Their third set tiebreaker went back-and-forth with head-to-head battles at net for 36 games, breaking the Olympic men's record for most games in a set of 34.

Federer, struggling to overcome a yearlong slump, came to Beijing knowing he would lose the No. 1 ranking to Rafael Nadal next week after 41/2 years on top.

He is striving to add an Olympic medal to his collection of 55 titles that include 12 Grand Slam trophies. Federer's best Olympic showing was a singles semifinal appearance at the 2000 Sydney Games.

The No. 2-seeded Venus and Serena Williams, both eliminated in singles Thursday, also completed a suspended second-round doubles match and beat Ayumi Morita and Ai Sugiyama of Japan 7-5, 6-2.

Another set of sisters, Alona and Kateryna Bondarenko from Ukraine, beat Italian pair Flavia Pennetta and Francesca Schiavone, 6-1, 3-6, 7-5.

By washingtonpost.com Sports Editor  |  August 15, 2008; 11:13 AM ET  | Category:  Tennis
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