Roger Federer moved to within two games of a third straight Wimbledon title when he defused the big guns of Chilean Fernando Gonzalez to win their quarter-final tie 7-5 6-2 7-6 (7/2). The top seeded Swiss player was left flat-footed at times by the power of the Gonzalez forehand, but in all other aspects of the game he was on top and the result looked in little doubt after Federer won a tight first set.
It was his 34th win in a row on grass and next up in the semi-finals will be old rival Leyton Hewitt of Australia who defeated Felciano Lopez of Spain in straight sets.
A buoyant Federer said afterwards: "I played a great match today. He was dangerous. It's my third semi-final in a row and Wimbledon has been good to me so far. The whole match I was tense and he was a dangerous opponent. I am happy with the way I played."
The 24-year-old Gonzalez came into his third appearance in a Grand Slam quarter-final as the only player in the tournament not to have dropped a set in the four previous rounds. But he was quickly in trouble against Federer, dropping his serve in the fourth game after badly mistiming a straightforward forehand.
Federer was comfortably holding on to his serve and he underlined the break to smoothly move 4-1 up. But two games later three identical forehand crosscourt howitzers from Gonzalez left Federer gasping and the Chilean levelled at 4-4.
The set looked like heading for a tie-break until Federer produced two great defensive efforts as Gonzalez let fly to break the Chilean for a second time and take the set in 33 minutes.
That established Federer's grip on the game and there is no finer front-runner in the sport. He raced into a 3-0 second set lead with another break of serve and looked comfortable holding on to that advantage forcing the explosive Gonzalez to take all the initiatives.
But brute force apart, the Chilean had little idea of how to unsettle the Federer calm and the second set slipped away 6-2 to the defending champion with the unforced errors mounting from Gonzalez.
It was more of the same in the third set although Gonzalez had a rare break point at 4-4 which he squandered going for a big inside-out forehand winner off a second serve. He did manage to force a second tie-break, but Federer majestically pulled away from 1-2 to rattle off six points in a row finishing it off with an ace down the middle.
