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Federer wary of Safin in semi-finals
Federer's march towards another title meets its biggest hurdle when he faces Safin on Thursday.
Roger Federer's seemingly unstoppable march towards another Australian Open title meets its biggest hurdle yet when he faces Marat Safin in the semi-finals on Thursday.
Federer is one of the hottest favourites in history to win the opening grand slam of the season but the Swiss master is wary about Safin even though the odds are heavily stacked in his favour.
Federer beat Safin in last year's Australian Open final and has won six of their previous seven clashes, including their epic battle in the semi-finals of last year's Masters Cup when he won a second-set tiebreak 20-18.
The world number one has also won his past 24 matches against players ranked in the top 10 and has yet to drop a set in the tournament after demolishing Andre Agassi in the quarter-finals. He insists he is taking nothing for granted against the big-serving Russian, however.
"I'm really looking forward to the contest with Safin," Federer said.
"I have the feeling he's playing good again and he had a great finish last year, good start again. So it's going to be a really hard match."
Safin was too exhausted to mount any real challenge to Federer in last year's final after surviving a series of five set matches but has dropped only two sets so far this year.
"There are no more easy matches," Safin said. "Everybody knows basically how to play against Roger but no-one can manage to get closer than three sets."
