Istanbul Open: Roger Federer battles his way into the semi-finals

Federer was made to sweat by Daniel Gimeno-Traver in the quarter-final of thesIStanbul Open.

Roger Federer survived a scare on Friday to keep his hopes of winning the Istanbul Open alive. Playing against 62nd ranked Daniel Gimeno-Traver, Federer was stretched to three sets in an encounter that lasted two hours and 28 minutes. The win takes Federer into the semi-finals.

Despite being pushed to the corner several times in the course of the match, Federer prevailed to clinch it, 7-6 (3), 6-7 (5), 6-3. After winning a tensely fought tie-breaker in the first set, Federer seemed to lose his bearings for a bit in the second, when he went down 2-5. But, the Swiss ace fought back to push the set into the tie-break.

Federer cruised to a 2-0 lead in the second set tie-break, but Gimeno-Traver was in no mood to keel over without a fight and won seven of the following nine points to level the match.

With Gimneo-Traver serving at 3-4, Federer visibly ramped up his game to clinch a crucial break to set up the match on his serve. In the final game of the match, Federer held his serve with relative ease to register his 19th win this season.

Federer will be up against Diego Schwartzman, who upset fourth seed Santiago Giraldo 0-6, 6-2, 6-2, to make it to his first career ATP tour semi-final. Expectedly, Schwartzman was elated with the result. "I have advanced to the first semi-final of my career; I lost the first eight games. He started playing really well and maybe I was a little bit nervous. Sometimes it happens. The crowd was amazing for me. I hope tomorrow will be the same”, said Scwartzman.

The season so far has been a moderately successful one for Federer, who picked up titles at Brisbane and Dubai. His clay-court season, however, got off to an unimpressive start at the Monte Carlo Masters, where he was knocked out in the third round by Gael Monfils.

The Swiss ace will be determined to get his form on clay back in time for the French Open.