Federer holds on to avoid major upset at U.S. Open

NEW YORK - His strokes awry, his emotions laid bare for all to see, Roger Federer figured out a way to stay in the U.S. Open.

Federer found himself locked in a five-set struggle against the sort of player the world is accustomed to seeing him dismiss with ease, and it was only down the stretch that the four-time defending champion at Flushing Meadows looked the part.

Avoiding as big an upset as tennis has seen in a while, Federer came back to beat 23rd-seeded Igor Andreev of Russia 6-7 (5), 7-6 (5), 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 Tuesday night to reach the quarterfinals at the year's last Grand Slam tournament.

"Being down a set, and a tiebreak in the second set, obviously, you know, there's danger written all over that situation," Federer said. "You just hope that it's going to turn your way. It did."

When he finished the match with a forehand winner, Federer shook his fists violently and yelled, then flashed a grin toward his girlfriend and others in his guest box.

Hard to recall the last time this guy was so pleased by a mere fourth-round victory. Federer is, after all, a man who owns 12 Grand Slam titles, two shy of Pete Sampras' career mark. A man who has won 31 consecutive matches at the U.S. Open. A man who is trying to extend his record streak of 17 straight appearances in major semifinals.

And yet Federer couldn't stop smiling at the end of the 3½-hour test, in part because, he explained, he found it fun to be pushed into a fifth set.

"I don't give myself the opportunity that much, you know, because I always win easily," he said. "I was just really pleased with my fighting spirit."

Novak Djokovic felt the same way about his five-setter on the same court earlier Tuesday. When Djokovic's 4-6, 6-2, 6-3, 5-7, 6-3 victory over No. 15 Tommy Robredo of Spain was over, the 2007 runner-up to Federer at the U.S. Open and the reigning Australian Open champion looked up in the stands and saw his mom pounding her chest repeatedly.

Djokovic responded in kind, bumping a closed fist over his heart four times, then using his right index finger to point there, point to each knee and point to his temple - looking up into the stands all the while.

"Just trying to show them, you know, how much effort I put into this match," Djokovic said.

He needed every ounce of heart, smarts and energy he could muster, and acknowledged that his quarterfinal foe - 2003 U.S. Open champion Andy Roddick, who overpowered No. 11 Fernando Gonzalez 6-2, 6-4, 6-1 at night - would be fitter.

"I've got to feel good," Roddick said, thinking ahead. "He's got about 16 injuries right now."

Djokovic was bothered at various points by his stomach, his hip, his right ankle and breathing problems.

"Somehow," the No. 3 Djokovic said, "I managed."

Because the Federer and Djokovic matches lasted so long, the women's quarterfinal between No. 2 Jelena Jankovic and No. 29 Sybille Bammer was moved from Arthur Ashe Stadium to Louis Armstrong Stadium. Jankovic won 6-1, 6-4, advancing to a semifinal against No. 5 Elena Dementieva, who beat No. 15 Patty Schnyder 6-2, 6-3.

Jankovic was happy about the court switch, she said, "because we would have to wait a long time for Federer to finish."

That surprised everyone, even if Federer's 12 losses already are more than he absorbed in any entire season from 2004-07. The standards he has set are so high that any misstep is fodder for questions about the state of his game - and his career.

Still, it's one thing to lose to Rafael Nadal, the man who walloped Federer in the French Open final and edged him in a five-set thriller of a Wimbledon final. Nadal owns five Grand Slam titles and has overtaken Federer in the rankings after the Swiss star's record 237-week stay at No. 1.

It would have been quite another thing to lose to Andreev, someone who showed up last week with a career mark of 2-3 at the U.S. Open, someone who only once made it to a major quarterfinal, someone who entered Tuesday on a seven-match losing streak against players ranked in the top five.

"For me, it was great experience," Andreev said, "and hopefully, like, in the future is going to help me."

He fell to 1-7 in five-set matches, and big-match toughness certainly was a factor at key stages.

That also could be the case when Federer plays 130th-ranked Gilles Muller in the quarterfinals Thursday. The only man from Luxembourg to play Grand Slam tennis knocked off No. 5 Nikolay Davydenko 6-4, 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (10) to become only the second qualifier to reach the U.S. Open quarterfinals.

Muller noted that he's used to observing a major tournament's "second week, and especially quarterfinals, from home, I mean, on my sofa, watching on TV. Now I'm here, and I'm in it."

Asked about facing another player who doesn't carry any burden of expectations into a match against him, Federer shrugged and said: "It's been like this for 4½ years. This is nothing different for me. It's just a guy who's got even less to lose."

Scurrying along the baseline to whip his go-for-it forehand and find a line, Andreev managed to make the once-invincible Federer seem human - not just during points, but between them.

Normally so calm, so collected, Federer often threw his head back in disappointment or screamed with delight. He pulled a ball out his pocket and chucked it. He cracked another ball into the net after one lost opportunity.

But in the second set, Andreev accumulated seven break points - and Federer saved them all. Any one of those could have swung the match for good. And in the crucible of the fifth set, Andreev compiled four more break points, all with Federer serving at 4-2 - and, again, Federer handled the situation better, erasing every one.

"Very important moment," Andreev acknowledged.

Another came in the second game of the fifth set, when Andreev managed to set aside two break points for Federer. On the third, though, Federer made a great return of a 119 mph serve, and Andreev eventually tried a drop shot.

Chugging forward, Federer not only got to the spinning ball, but somehow flicked a lob that curled like an upside-down "U" over the 6-foot-tall Andreev and landed right at the baseline. Andreev ran back and put his racket on the ball, but flung a backhand out. Federer pumped his fists, while Andreev smacked a ball into the stands, drawing a warning from the chair umpire.

"The moment of the night," Federer called it.

His serve was broken in the match's opening game, and then he blew a lead in the first tiebreaker. That set closed with a 13-stroke exchange that Federer ended by missing a forehand wide - already his 19th unforced error of the match, nearly twice as many as Andreev, so far.

There was more of the same, but in the end, Federer could rely on muscle memory from big matches in big settings that Andreev could not.

"Maybe for a while it was quite always the same for me - go on court, you win all the time," Federer said. "So maybe you don't take it for granted that much anymore."

Williams sisters get set for US Open quarterfinal

NEW YORK - They share a family and a sport. They have sponsors and coaches in common, too, along with a level of Grand Slam success unmatched by any other active player.

Venus and Serena Williams don't do absolutely everything as a team, though. When it came time Tuesday to prepare for their all-Williams quarterfinal at the U.S. Open, the sisters lined up on adjacent courts, hitting beside - not with - each other.

They often practice together. Not this time. Not with what's at stake Wednesday night in their 17th meeting as professionals. Their father, who along with their mother coaches both women, went back and forth, keeping tabs on his racket-wielding daughters.

Later, the side-by-side training sessions done, the sisters caught separate rides away from Flushing Meadows. As Serena walked alone to the parking lot, checking for text messages on her pink cell phone, she was asked if it becomes less tough to have to look across the net during a match and see Venus standing there.

"It does," Serena said Tuesday. "Each time, it gets easier."

Both siblings have defeated the other eight times. The series also is tied at 5-5 in showdowns at major championships.

Their title match at Wimbledon in July - when Venus earned her fifth title at the All England Club and denied Serena what would have been her third - was filled with power and precision. It was the quality of play they nearly always manage to produce against other women, but have had trouble replicating when facing one another.

Finally, it seems, they can forget temporarily that they're sisters and swing freely.

"It's my career and her career," Serena said Monday night after beating Severine Bremond 6-2, 6-2 in the fourth round. "I know she can definitely bury it, so I can do the same thing."

Venus sounded a similar note after her 6-1, 6-3 victory over No. 9-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland. Looking ahead to the quarterfinals, Venus said of facing Serena: "That will be a huge milestone - to get by her to win this championship. That's pretty much how I see it, as trying to win the tournament."

Each Williams won the U.S. Open twice: Serena in 1999 and 2002, Venus in 2000 and 2001. Their meeting in the 2001 title match at Flushing Meadows was the first time sisters played each other in a major final since Maud and Lillian Watson decided the very first Wimbledon championship - in 1884.

Venus and Serena played again in the 2002 U.S. Open final, part of a stretch in which they met in five of six Grand Slam championship matches. That was back when both spent time at No. 1 and were far and away the dominant figures in women's tennis.

"Obviously we were playing very well then," Venus said. "Things happen. Life happened. You can't always predict it."

Long stretches of inactivity, due in part to injuries, led to slides in the rankings - Serena is No. 3, Venus No. 8 - which is why the luck of the draw came into play at the U.S. Open and they were sent to the same section of the tournament bracket.

Instead of continuing to swap major titles the way some sisters swap secrets, they watched Justine Henin, Maria Sharapova, Kim Clijsters and others clutch those trophies and ascend to No. 1. With Henin and Clijsters retired, Sharapova sidelined by a bum shoulder, and current No. 1 Ana Ivanovic bounced by a second-round upset, the potential stumbling blocks were fewer at this tournament.

Still, now in their late 20s, the Williams sisters do appear to have returned to prominence.

Serena has lost a total of 14 games through four matches here, and Venus has dropped 15.

And they're climbing back up the rankings. Serena has a chance to be No. 1 at tournament's end, although she's part of a large group who can say the same. That includes Jelena Jankovic and Elena Dementieva, who will meet in the semifinals after winning Tuesday. Jankovic beat Sabille Bammer 6-1, 6-4, while Olympic singles gold medalist Dementieva defeated Patty Schnyder 6-2, 6-3.

Jankovic and Dementieva, like every woman not named Williams who's still playing, are searching for a first Grand Slam title.

Serena, meanwhile, is after No. 9, and Venus seeks No. 8.

How's that for a sibling rivalry?

Venus was asked before the U.S. Open began whether she and her younger sister can once again be Nos. 1 and 2 in the rankings.

"That's the plan," she said, "but I don't think either one of us is aiming for 2."

>> Howard Fendrich

Roddick breezes into US Open quarterfinals

NEW YORK - Andy Roddick was nearly perfect against Fernando Gonzalez in the U.S. Open's fourth round Tuesday night.

Roddick, the 2003 champion, won 53 of 62 points on his serve and faced only one break point while putting together a 6-2, 6-4, 6-1 victory over the 11th-seeded Gonzalez to reach the quarterfinals for the seventh time in nine appearances at Flushing Meadows.

Roddick finished with 30 winners and only seven unforced errors, an unusually strong ratio made more impressive in comparison to Gonzalez's 24 winners and 33 unforced errors.

"You never think you're going to run away with it," said Roddick, who is seeded eighth.

Roddick hit serves at up to 141 mph, and the lone break point he faced came while leading 3-1 in the third set. It quickly vanished when Gonzalez pushed a forehand passing try wide.

Roddick now faces No. 3 Novak Djokovic, the 2007 U.S. Open runner-up and reigning Australian Open champion. Roddick and Djokovic split their two previous matches on tour.

Djokovic needed five sets to win his fourth-round match against No. 15 Tommy Robredo and had to deal with stomach, hip, ankle and breathing problems.

"I've got to feel good," Roddick said, thinking ahead. "He's got about 16 injuries right now."

After Roddick jokingly tossed out a few possible additions to Djokovic's long list of ailments - "bird flu, Anthrax, SARS" - he was asked whether he believed the Serbian was exaggerating his problems.

"Either he's quick to call the trainer or one of the most courageous guys of all time," Roddick said.

Defeated Davydenko not upset by upset question

NEW YORK - For more than a year, the cloud of a gambling investigation has covered Nikolay Davydenko. So after he lost to a qualifier ranked 130th at the U.S. Open, the question was inevitable.

Did he feel a need, Davydenko was asked Tuesday, to explain how in the world Gilles Muller upset him?

"I can beat everyone and I can lose to everyone," the fifth-seeded Russian said, without a hint of anger or agitation. "Normally I have a chance to win, but I didn't."

"What can I say?" he said. "Not a thing about (the) investigation or something else."

Muller won 6-4, 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (10) in the fourth round, adding to Davydenko's tough year on and off the court.

The gambling probe began in August 2007 after Davydenko pulled out of a match in Poland against lowly Martin Vassallo Arguello in the third set because of a bad foot. An online betting agency voided all wagers, citing an inordinate amount of money put on the match - including lots of bets for Arguello, even after he lost the first set.

ATP investigators spoke to Davydenko, his wife and family members and reviewed telephone records. This summer, Davydenko said he may have inadvertently tipped off bettors by talking too loudly about his injury to his wife during the tournament.

There has been no official word from tennis officials on the outcome of the investigation.

STICKING AROUND

Gilles Muller turned down tickets to Thursday's NFL opener at Giants Stadium because he expected to be home by then. It turns out that he'll still be in town late in the second week of the U.S. Open, but he wouldn't have been able to make the game, anyway.

The world's 130th-ranked player has a date Thursday with four-time defending champion Roger Federer in the quarterfinals.

The lefty from Luxembourg became just the second qualifier in the 40-year Open era to advance this far. He beat No. 5 Nikolay Davydenko 6-4, 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (10) on Tuesday.

Muller joked that he was used to watching the later rounds from home.

"On my sofa, watching on TV," Muller said. "Now I'm here, and I'm in it."

Muller has played mostly on the lower-level challenger circuit this year, but he's no newcomer to big upsets at majors. In 2005, he beat Rafael Nadal in the second round at Wimbledon and Andy Roddick in the first round at the U.S. Open when each was ranked third.

Now Muller will probably climb into the top 65 in the rankings and is guaranteed at least $160,000 in prize money. He'd made just $74,851 this year.

So American football will have to wait.

"We don't follow it so much in Luxembourg, but I really like it, yeah," Muller said. "I went to a (Dolphins) game last year for the first time in Miami when I was practicing there.

"It was the only game they won."

WHO'S NO. 1?

Winning the U.S. Open would make Elena Dementieva the top-ranked woman in the world. Even so, she's not sure who's really the best right now.

"There is no No. 1 for the moment," the fifth-seeded Russian said Tuesday after coasting past Patty Schnyder 6-2, 6-3. "Because, well, I don't know. Maybe the competition is too tough. It's quite open for a few players."

Serena Williams, Jelena Jankovic and Dinara Safina could wind up as No. 1, as could top-seeded Ana Ivanovic despite her early upset loss at Flushing Meadows.

"I think probably the most consistent player is Jelena Jankovic," Dementieva said.

Dementieva won the Olympic gold medal and is trying to win her first Grand Slam championship. She has won all 10 sets she's played in this tournament.

"I feel I need to improve my game," she said. "I really feel that there are some players out there that are very powerful. I need to be a stronger player. I need to improve my serve."

IN THE PICTURE

Sam Querrey's surprising run in the U.S. Open gave him another kind of shot at success.

The 55th-ranked Querrey reached an endorsement deal with Olympus on Tuesday, one day after he lost to No. 1 Rafael Nadal in a tough fourth-round match.

The 20-year-old Querrey and fellow young American John Isner are the only pro tennis players to sign deals with the camera company.

>> Ben Walker. AP Sports Writer Rachel Cohen contributed to this report.