WHEN THE RAIN finally let up at Flushing Meadows yesterday, Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer wasted little time in setting up a mouth-watering semi-final date.
Chasing a 17th Grand Slam title, Federer quickly took care of his unfinished business against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, his conquerer in five sets at Wimbledon earlier this summer.
Despite a 90 minute rain delay in the first set, the world number three was as efficient as ever, winning in straight sets 6-4 6-3 6-3.
That victory secured Federer’s passage to an eighth consecutive US Open semi-final where he will meet Djokovic, whose 43-game streak he ended at the same stage of the French Open in June.
The Serbian was two sets to one up and on course for victory when his opponent and fellow countryman Janko Tipsarevic retired in the fourth set with a hamstring injury, handing the world number one a 7-6 6-7 6-0 3-0 win.
After days of weather-related disruption, the line-up for the two remaining men’s quarter-finals was finally completed last night.
Andy Roddick saw his match against David Ferrer hastily shifted to court 13 after a crack in the base rendered his original court unusable. The American shrugged off the disruption to win 6-3 6-4 3-6 6-3 and progress to a quarter-final meeting against Rafael Nadal, who beat Gilles Muller in four sets.
The other outstanding quarter-final sees Andy Murray play John Isner after they saw off the challenges of Donald Young and Gilles Simon respectively.
The revised schedule of play means that both of those games have been pencilled in for today, with the men’s final subsequently pushed back to Monday at 9pm BST by the tournament organisers.
The semi-finals of the ladies’ singles — world number one Caroline Wozniacki vs Serena Williams and Angelique Kerber vs Australia’s Samantha Stosur — have both been deferred until tomorrow, with the final pushed back to Sunday at 9pm BST.
