{"id":25750,"date":"2020-01-28T17:52:57","date_gmt":"2020-01-28T17:52:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dinnews.in\/?p=25750"},"modified":"2020-01-28T17:52:57","modified_gmt":"2020-01-28T17:52:57","slug":"federer-saves-seven-match-points-in-miracle-escape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/?p=25750","title":{"rendered":"Federer saves seven match points in &#8216;miracle&#8217; escape"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify; background: white; margin: 0in -.2in 12.0pt -.2in;\"><span style=\"font-size: 8.0pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: #383636; background: white;\">Swiss great Roger Federer said that &#8220;I believe in miracles&#8221; after he saved seven match points in a five-set nail-biter against 100th-ranked Tennys Sandgren to labour into the Australian Open semi-finals on Tuesday.<\/span>The six-time champion, struggling physically, saved three match points at 4-5 in the fourth set and four more in the tie-breaker to win 6-3, 2-6, 2-6, 7-6 (10\/8), 6-3 and set up a clash against either title-holder Novak Djokovic or Milos Raonic.Federer received a rare warning for an audible obscenity before going off-court for treatment on a groin injury in the third set, but still looked hampered as he forced a fifth set against the big-serving American.&#8221;I believe in miracles,&#8221; Federer said, revealing that he thought his groin strain had ended his chances. &#8220;There could be rain, there could be all kinds of stuff.<span style=\"font-size: 8.0pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; color: #383636;\"><br style=\"font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; word-spacing: 0px;\" \/> <span style=\"background: white;\"><span style=\"font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; float: none; word-spacing: 0px;\">&#8220;(I thought) just let him finish me off in style, and he didn&#8217;t do that. I&#8217;m incredibly lucky tonight, today &#8212; I don&#8217;t even know what time it is.&#8221;<\/span>Sandgren, achingly close to becoming the lowest-ranked player to beat Federer at the Australian Open, can count himself unlucky especially after a ball girl accidentally collided with him during the pivotal tie-breaker, which he lost.<\/span>Federer has made heavy weather of reaching his 46th Major semi-final. He was two points from defeat by John Millman in a fifth-set tie-breaker in round three, and dropped a set against 67th-ranked Marton Fucsovics in round four.<\/span>Quiet little life&#8217;.In the women&#8217;s draw Australia&#8217;s world number one Ashleigh Barty dismissed two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova in impressive style to reach the semis for the first time.The unflappable Barty beat the Czech 7-6 (8\/6), 6-2 and will be favourite in her semi-final against America&#8217;s Sofia Kenin &#8212; sending hopes soaring of a first home winner in 42 years.The French Open champion, who once quit tennis to play cricket and has been steadily rising since her return, is the tournament&#8217;s poster girl with her image plastered all over Melbourne.But she said: &#8220;I&#8217;d prefer to just be sitting at home just living my quiet little life.&#8221; Kenin, whose career is also on the up, made her first Grand Slam semi-final and with it will rise to at least 12 in the rankings &#8212; making her the second-highest American behind Serena Williams.The feisty 21-year-old was a 6-4, 6-4 winner over Ons Jabeur, halting the Tunisian&#8217;s historic run which made her the first Arab woman to reach a Major quarter-final.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Swiss great Roger Federer said that &#8220;I believe in miracles&#8221; after he saved seven match points in a five-set nail-biter against 100th-ranked Tennys Sandgren to labour into the Australian Open semi-finals on Tuesday.The six-time champion, struggling physically, saved three match points at 4-5 in the fourth set and four more in the tie-breaker to win 6-3, 2-6, 2-6, 7-6 (10\/8), 6-3 and set up a clash against either title-holder Novak Djokovic or Milos Raonic.Federer received a rare warning for an audible obscenity before going off-court for treatment on a groin&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25751,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25750"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25750"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25752,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25750\/revisions\/25752"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dinnews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}