Roger Federer gets the better of Monfils to set up all-Swiss quarterfinal at Roland Garros

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Roger Federer finally got the better of Gael Monfils Monday in their fourth meeting at Roland Garros.

Second seed Federer, the 2009 champion, knocked out No. 13 seed Monfils 6-3, 4-6, 6-4, 6-1 carried over from Sunday for a place in his 11th quarter-final at the clay-court major. The match lasted two hours and 17 minutes.

"I wanted to get off to a good start, because you never know how he will be playing," said Federer. "So I felt good. I was calm yesterday. I was calm this morning. So we (Stefan Edberg and I) adopted the right game plan and the right tactical approach. I'm very happy."

Federer has a 16-2 FedEx ATP Head2Head lead against his next opponent, fellow Swiss and eighth seed Stan Wawrinka.

"It [will be] a special match," said Federer. "It is not a traditional match. There aren't too many Swiss players in the draw... It's always special to play each other. There will be a Swiss guy in the semi-final. That's positive. I hope I will reach the semifinal of a tournament. I will pull out all the stops to advance to the next round. If I will not make it, I will be very happy for Stan."

Resuming at one-set all, Federer needed 63 minutes to wrap up the third and fourth sets.

He quickly broke clear of Monfils and came close to taking a 4-1 lead in the third set. Monfils fought back, forcing Federer to save one break point at 4-3. Federer broke in the first game of the fourth set and, at one point, won 10 straight points to take the match away from Monfils.

Federer is now 29-5 on the season, which includes three ATP World Tour titles.

Afterwards, Monfils said, "It was tough because I'm sick. I have not much energy. Yesterday, I thought that maybe we might not play and it would help me a little bit, and finally we did play. I was battling to get a set and actually for me one-set all was perfect.

"I didn't have a great night last night, so it was maybe a mistake. Roger played solid. I think not very decent, but just a solid match. I couldn't challenge him because I was too tired... When you're 100 per cent is it's never easy to beat Roger, so when you're not 100 per cent it is definitely impossible."

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