Wimbledon - Men:Wimbledon title favourite Roger Federer swatted aside the challenge of Ivo Karlovic this afternoon to book his place in the semi-finals. The Croat has not dropped serve in reaching the last eight, but Federer picked him off when he needed to en route to a 6-3 7-5 7-6 (7/3) victory. Federer will meet Tommy Haas for a place in what would be his seventh successive final in SW19.
All the pre-match talk had been about Karlovic's huge serve which had not been broken in SW19, nor at the warm-up tournament at Queen's Club.
However, Karlovic soon found out that his level of opposition had gone up considerably as the world number two broke him in only his second service game.
The 6ft 10in star was left floundering by two superb returns, one on the backhand making it 15-40 and the second a crunching forehand down the line which earned Federer a 3-1 lead.
Indeed it was Federer's serve proving the more difficult to return and he went on to close out the set with a great pick-up on the forehand. It had taken just 23 minutes and the second seed had lost just three points on his own delivery.
The second set followed a similar pattern, although this time Federer had to wait until game 11 to break.
Another tremendous backhand winner on the return of serve brought up two break points and he needed only one as the Croat could only get the frame on another searing backhand pass.
Karlovic finally managed to take Federer to deuce in the fifth game of the third set, but the five-time champion got himself out of that situation comfortably enough.
The 22nd seed was regularly overhitting as he struggled to cope with Federer's changes of pace.
He still managed to force a tie-break but after losing the first point, Federer was never headed as he wrapped up a straight-sets win in just an hour and 43 minutes.
The win took Federer into his 21st successive Grand Slam semi-final - a run which began at Wimbledon in 2004.
"I love the record I have, reaching so many semi-finals. It shows how consistent I've been," he said afterwards. "Once you're at this stage you want to win the tournament. Having won so many times it gives me a great feeling.''
Soon afterwards, German veteran Haas rolled back the years to knock fourth seed Novak Djokovic out.
The 31-year-old set beat the Serbian star 7-5 7-6 (8/6) 4-6 6-3.
With Haas serving well throughout the contest, Djokovic was left to regret missing three set points in the second set tie-break.
He did threaten a fightback by winning the third, but Haas refocused to claim the fourth and reach the last four for the first time in his long career.