Djokovic, Federer handle wind, breeze into semis

On another bad hair day (and night) inside Arthur Ashe Stadium, with winners and losers alike getting blown away in this year's blustery U.S. Open atmospherics, five-time champion Roger Federer and his perennial semifinal opponent nevertheless arranged to meet again Saturday.

Federer and Novak Djokovic, the Nos. 2 and 3 seeds, demonstrated the veterans' ability to cope with the unusually persistent winds in setting up their third consecutive duel in the Open's penultimate round. Federer, who holds a 10-5 career advantage against Djokovic, won both of those previous meetings as well as the 2007 Open final over Djokovic.

In yesterday's quarterfinals Djokovic, the 23-year-old Serb, dismissed No. 17 Gael Monfils of France, 7-6 (2), 6-1, 6-2. Then Federer offered a similar demonstration of managing both the elements and No. 5 Robin Soderling of Sweden, virtually cruising, 6-4, 6-4, 7-5.

Men's quarterfinal action will conclude Friday night with No. 1 seed Rafael Nadal against fellow Spaniard Fernando Verdasco, No. 8, after a day match between Russia's Mikhail Youzhny, No. 12, and Switzerland's Stanislas Wawrinka, No. 25.

In last night's strong breezes, the sprayed ground strokes, framed mis-hits and shaky serves somehow came to a halt when Federer most needed control. After fending off four Soderling break points in his first three service games of the match, Federer pounced on the first break opportunity presented him in the seventh game and quickly served out the set.

It didn't hurt that the wind appeared to take Federer's side during that seventh game, holding up a Federer lob just before it sailed long, then keeping a rally alive with a fortuitous hop over the net cord. Federer produced the game-winning drop shot all on his own. He played a remarkably clean match, with 18 aces and only two double faults.

"Well," Federer said, "I practice my serve all the time. If I can't serve in the wind, I'm in trouble. You could wake me up at two in the morning and I can serve."

All of that came after Monfils, the delightfully showy Frenchman, found his 4-2 first-set lead to be built of straw against Djokovic, who set about erecting a house of mental brick amid Mother Nature's huffing and puffing.

"In my opinion," Djokovic said, "the key facts to adjust to the wind are good focus and patience. Try to hold your nerves throughout the whole match, and play out one point at a time.''

Monfils acknowledged that, "with that wind, you can really find my weakness. Like, I'm very physical and speedy, and we need to be very focused on every shot."

The answer to the wind, Djokovic said, was "just kind of playing in the present moment. I did well. I did well.''

His entertaining style aside, Monfils' attempts to play with pace and with slice too often came to no good end while Djokovic controlled play by choosing basics over flair. Monfils flew around the court haphazardly. Djokovic, like Federer later on, was the calm in the storm.