Roger Federer may be through to his 34th grand-slam tournament semi-final, yet his hunger and drive remain undiminished.
Just ask Gaël Monfils, who let two match points slip through his fingers on Thursday night before Federer sealed a dramatic 4-6, 3-6, 6-4, 7-5, 6-2 triumph.
Today the 33-year-old, who is bidding to win his first US Open crown since 2008, will take on Marin Cilic, of Croatia, for a place in Monday’s final.
Naturally, for someone who is playing in his 60th consecutive grand-slam tournament, there have been many evenings such as the one against Monfils, the 28-year-old Frenchman.
Yet Federer, the 17-times grand-slam winner, seems to be enjoying his tennis like never before. With experience comes knowhow.
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His movement, a feature of his campaign at Flushing Meadows, continues to impress — the Swiss approached the net 74 times in the quarter-final while also garnering more than 50 points from the baseline. Those statistics strikingly illustrate how Federer is able to mix up his approach.
Not everything clicked like clockwork, though. “I don’t think I was able to come in enough, really, because I was just not hitting the ball well enough off the baseline,” he said. “I started to serve and volley some more as the match went on, but I don’t know if I can keep it up. It’s going to be a day match now against Cilic. I played him in Toronto in equally fast conditions. I’m happy I’m spending some time at the net, because that’s going to keep giving me confidence to keep on doing that as we move along in the tournament.
“Against Gaël particularly, in the back of the mind you’re always aware that one more passing shot could happen, like on the match point that sailed past me, and you just hope it’s not going to land inside but outside. I’m happy I kept on pressing, and that I got a reward.”
For Cilic, a tumultuous 12 months have culminated in real progress and achievement. The Croat was absent in New York last year as he served a provisional ban after failing a drugs test.
He had always protested his innocence, insisting that his mother had purchased some tablets for him, ones that he had believed were clean.
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The ban was reduced to four months on appeal and since his return to the game, Cilic, in partnership with Goran Ivanisevic, the former Wimbledon champion who is his coach, has gone from strength to strength.
“It’s not like, you know, he’s come from being a top-50 player to all of a sudden knocking on the top-ten door,” Federer said. “He’s been there before, but it just feels it’s not so much in the other guy’s racket. It feels like he also has a say in the outcome, and that’s kind of what you want, especially against top players.
“Against [Tomas] Berdych from start to finish, he closed it out, came back, all that stuff. That’s what you have to do, you know, especially in a grand-slam.”
Cilic, now the world No 16, is determined to make up for lost time. “I know what it is like to have tennis taken away from me,” said the Croat, who took Novak Djokovic, the world No 1, to five sets in the Wimbledon quarter-finals this summer.
“It angered me how all the process went because it was not fair to me,” Cilic said. “It wouldn’t be fair to any player. So that was just very bad memories.
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“But, you know, when you’re up against big organisations you can’t do much. So I just accepted it.
“When I came back to the tennis court I erased it from my memory. I just used the positive parts, which made me tougher.
“I felt that I was more directed to the goals I want and, with a great atmosphere in my team, I feel it helped me to gain much more in all different areas. I feel I am playing the best tennis of my career now.”
Djokovic, meanwhile, will meet another resurgent player in the shape of Kei Nishikori, of Japan, in the other semi-final.