Top-seed Federer ousts Roddick from quarterfinals in straight sets

NEW YORK -- To Andy Roddick's credit, he played nearly flawlessly against Roger Federer, serving brilliantly, returning well, too, and giving tennis' top player a tough time.

To Roddick's dismay, it all added up to yet another loss.

In a match as tight as could be for 2 1/2 sets, Federer was barely better on the most important points and emerged to edge Roddick 7-6 (5), 7-6 (4), 6-2 in Wednesday's quarterfinals, moving two victories away from a fourth consecutive U.S. Open title.

Both came out wearing black shirts and shorts, Roddick adding a baseball cap, and Federer his trademark bandanna. The outfits matched and so did the level of play, right down until late in the third set, when Federer finally earned his first break points -- allowing him to improve to 14-1 against Roddick over their careers.

This rematch of last year's U.S. Open final was hardly the mismatch one might have expected.

"I tried to hang in there," Federer said. "It was a tough match, I thought. Andy was serving out of a tree."

That's for sure.

Banging serves consistently up to 146 mph, Roddick hit 14 aces and didn't have a single double-fault. Then again, Federer came up with 15 aces, also never double-faulted, and erased the only break point he faced, in the second set.

Both played remarkably clean, combining for 90 winners (48 for Federer) and only 42 unforced errors (18 for Federer).

In Thursday's quarterfinals, No. 3-seeded Novak Djokovic's reached a third consecutive Grand Slam semifinal by beating No. 17 Carlos Moya 6-4, 7-6 (7), 6-1.

In Saturday's semifinals, he'll meet No. 15 David Ferrer -- who just happens to be the man who ran Rafael Nadal ragged in the Open's fourth round. Ferrer reached his first major semifinal by beating No. 20 Juan Ignacio Chela 6-2, 6-3, 7-5.

Federer is in his record 14th Grand Slam semifinal in a row and plays No. 4 Nikolay Davydenko on Saturday. Federer is 9-0 against Davydenko, and hasn't fared too poorly against the semifinalists on the other side of the draw -- he's 7-0 against Ferrer, 4-1 against Djokovic.

Djokovic's one victory over Federer came in their most recent meeting, in the final of a hard-court tournament in Montreal last month. It was at that event that Djokovic became the first man since 1994 to defeat men ranked Nos. 1-3 at the same tournament.

That counted as Djokovic's breakthrough moment. It also gave him four titles in 2007, and his 57 match wins through Thursday rank second only to Nadal.

In the women's bracket, Venus Williams was out on the practice court in the late afternoon, preparing for her semifinal today against No. 1 Justine Henin. After eliminating Serena Williams in her previous match, Henin will try to become only the second woman to beat both sisters at the same Grand Slam tournament.

The other women's semifinal is 2004 U.S. Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova against No. 6 Anna Chakvetadze.