Murray out, Federer faces Djokovic final

And it shows no signs of stopping.

With the victory, Federer reached his 26th Grand Slam final, and it’s hard to overstate the breadth of that achievement, because he has done it in a golden age of men’s tennis. When one of the most brilliant, most accurate servers of his time only misses 5 first serves all set, it’s simply time to raise the white flag or run.

At times breathtaking, Federer reduced the world number three to a schooled pupil, who despite playing some of his best tennis was reduced to punching his chair in frustration at the changeover.

Federer will be 34 next month and is far from cooked. Jimmy Connors is another one that played well late.

Gasquet surprisingly beat Stan Wawrinka in the quarterfinals, and he’s doing well so far on Centre Court against Djokovic.

Murray delivered a 129 miles per hour ace to pull out an epic seven-deuce, 15-minute game, saving five set points along the way, to get to 5-all in the second set.

It’s not all that often that someone can play so well and still lose in straight sets. Friday, it was a masterpiece. He has won seven, same as Sampras.

“Novak’s been the best player for a few years now”, Federer said. Sunday, they will go at it again.

Djokovic, who beat Federer in last year’s final, had earlier swept into his fourth Wimbledon final with a ruthlessly efficient 7-6 (7-2), 6-4, 6-4 victory over Richard Gasquet. Not against Federer. Not on this day. It takes something magical to get a British crowd on Centre Court to find affection for anybody else when one of its own is playing.

The crowd did their bit but, as Murray pointed out, he did not give them enough to cheer. But few tears were shed when Federer won. “It really depends on what your preference is”, Murray said.

‘He clearly deserved to win the match, he had more opportunities than me.

“I know what I’m trying to achieve”, he said. “It worked well for him”.

Federer fought off a break point in the opening game, but then neither man blinked until the Swiss carved out his first opportunities in the 12th game.

It did not work well for Murray. The first set ended with the first service break of the match, Federer finally getting through Murray’s serve to take the lead.

Murray’s wasn’t bad, either.

Gasquet, who had won just one of his 12 previous meetings with Djokovic, in 2007, lost a must-win tiebreak in the first set. After the match Djokovic conceded that winning the first set was the breakthrough giving him the mental advantage. The break points here were also set points. He’s one of the people that actually made me a better player.

Three times this happened: Federer serving brilliantly followed by Murray losing his serve as the pressure overwhelmed him whilst serving to stay in the set.

In that one, Federer closed on the second break point and got a high forehand volley to finish.

“In a match like this, I can have a great performance”. The pressure builds throughout the set that way. As he kept saying in the immediate aftermath: “I don’t feel like I played that badly”.

That might be encouraging for Djokovic fans. The normal ebbs and flows of a best-of-five- sets match were depressingly absent – Federer never let up for a second. You will need to install a podcast compatible app from your device app store in order to subscribe to this podcast. I think individual sports, to be great for a long time, you have to have so many different ingredients to, I don’t know, your abilities. It recalled vintage Roger Federer, as did the “journalist” who later punctuated his question to Federer about this shot by adoringly crying out “unbelievable!”