• French Open, Day Ten

Federer takes time to overcome Monfils test

Roger Federer powers down a serve © Getty Images

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• Profile: Roger Federer | Gael Monfils

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Roger Federer had to steel himself and overcome a late rally from Gael Monfils to book his place in the semi-finals of the French Open, thanks to a straight sets victory that was anything but straightforward.

After a poor opening from ninth seed Monfils, the home favourite slowly found his flow at Court Phillippe Chatrier, with Federer ultimately forced to come through a gruelling 71-minute third set to secure a 6-4 6-3 7-6(3) triumph that took over two-and-a-half hours.

He now faces a mouth-watering semi-final against in-form Serbian Novak Djokovic.

"He [Monfils] is a superb player, so I knew the danger of this quarter-final," said Federer. "I'm very happy to be in the semi-finals.

"Playing a semi-final here at Roland Garros is a great moment and playing such a great player [Djokovic] is what we train for."

Despite the time spent on court the first two sets surprisingly were low-quality affairs, with both players struggling to find a rhythm - perhaps affected by a brisk breeze that continued throughout the match. Monfils was clearly stretching the greater, however, forced to overcome an affection for double-faults that seemed to rear its head at least once every service game.

The first set nevertheless saw serves held to 4-4, before the double faults afflicted Monfils once again at a crucial juncture and enabled his Swiss opponent to get his nose in front - making no mistake to go on and clinch the opening set.

That set-back seemed to demoralise Monfils, who smashed his racket against the clay before immediately falling behind in the second set against the third seed. But he soon fought back to parity, somewhat against the run of play, before a mixture of bad luck - his opponent fortuitous with a number of net cords - and sloppy mistakes paved the way for Federer to get another break ahead and ride that to a two-set lead - a position he has never previously lost from at Roland Garros.

The third set, however, provided just a hint that such a record could yet be threatened, as Monfils finally seemed to settle into a rhythm - a development that resulted in a much harder-fought and time-consuming contest than the crowd had previously been witnessing.

Federer again moved a break ahead after some consummate groundstrokes, but Monfils no longer showed signs of giving up - fighting back to level terms almost immediately and then showing great resolve to force the set to a tie-break - in fact he was perhaps unlucky not to engineer a break that could have sent the match to a fourth stanza.

The Frenchman got off to an awful start in the tiebreak, however, dropping the opening three points in the blink of an eye - before a missed forehand pass when there was still light at the end of the tunnel and a straightforward forehand put-away from Federer saw the match finished with less drama than perhaps could have been expected.

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