Roger Federer says it was ‘horrible’ to play his match with Novak Djokovic knowing he had just a three per cent chance of winning. Federer came into the match with worries over his fitness following an upper right leg injury.
But Federer passed himself fit and made a promising start to lead 4-1.
He then had three break points to lead 5-1 however Djokovic recovered, broke back and won the first set in a tiebreak.
Djokovic then dominated the rest of the match as Federer put up a brave resistance.
The Serbian eventually completed a 7-6 6-4 6-3 win to reach an eighth Australian Open.
After the match, Federer admitted he was never confident about his chances of winning but was happy to have reached the semi-finals.
He said: “Today was horrible, to go through what I did. Nice entrance, nice sendoff, and in between is one to forget because you know you have a 3% chance to win.
“You know, got to go for it. You never know. But once you can see it coming, that it’s not going to work anymore, it’s tough.
“No, look, at the end of the day I’m very happy. I think I overall played all right. I know I can play better.
“He was obviously hurt and wasn’t at his best, even close to his best in terms of movement but came out and tried his best all the way through.”
Djokovic now awaits the winner of Friday’s second semi-final between Alexander Zverev and Dominic Thiem.
Victory for Djokovic on Sunday would hand him his 17th Grand Slam title.
