Hometown Hero Roger Federer is through to the final of the Swiss Indoors in Basel after defeating good friend Stanislas Wawrinka 7-6 (5) 6-2 in Saturday’s semi-final.
Federer is looking to win his fifth Basel trophy and Sunday’s final will be Federer’s eight finals appearance at the event. Wawrinka and Federer have faced each other elven times and the Swiss number two has only been victorious once. The World No. 4 has only got one title to his name this year but his Grand Slam record has been great with one final, two semis and one quarterfinal.
The French Open finalist will now face Japanese wildcard Kei Nishikori in the Basel final. This upcoming player stunned World No. 1 Novak Djokovic in the top half semi-final 2-6 7-6 (4) 6-0. Federer said has never encountered the Japanese rising star, “He’s a guy I’ve never played against. My focus will be to remember how he plays. He beat Novak in the semis, so he’ll have a shot in the final.”
Nishikori is the first Japanese player to beat a world number one ranked player. It looked like Djokovic was going to win easily as he took at 5-1 lead very quickly in the first set. Nishikori kept fighting and the Serb kept getting treatment on his shoulder throughout the match. Djokovic is not sure if he will be able to compete in Paris next week, “I changed the technique of my serve a little bit. I was forcing it too much because of the injury I have.”
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