Federer 'proud' of Grand Slam semi-final run

| Thursday June 3, 2010 00:00

Soderling gained revenge for losing last year's final as he secured his first win over Federer in 13 attempts with a 3-6 6-3 7-5 6-4 quarter-final victory.

And the 25-year-old fifth seed also brought to an end the world number one's interest in a Grand Slam before the semi-final stage for the first time since he lost to Gustavo Kuerten in Paris six years ago.

'They all come to an end at some stage - you hope they don't, but they do,' said Federer. 'It was a great run. I think it started here when I lost to Kuerten back in '04, I guess it is.'If then I could have signed for all those semis in a row, I would have done it right away.

'I've made incredible progress in terms of my play at the highest level, to be able to always come back and play semis after semis after semis in Slams and give myself chances to win in Slams.

'I was able to win many of them. I was proud to have that streak, and it's probably one of the greatest ones I have in my history.'

Federer, who joked, 'now I've got the quarter-final streak going, I guess', will lose the number one ranking to Rafael Nadal if the Spaniard wins the tournament but insisted that was not his main concern.

'You just take the defeat as it is,' said the Swiss. 'You don't think of the consequences. I guess I'm most disappointed that I can't defend my title here. I really felt like my tennis was good enough to come here and do it again, but that was not the case today.

'So it's more the disappointment in having maybe not delivered my very best performance today, conditions and opponents didn't allow me to.'

The match was interrupted for over an hour by a rain delay and Federer lost his serve, and soon after the third set, on the resumption.

'I'm not blaming the conditions or anything, but I think they were in his favour towards the end,' said Federer.'These were some serious, tough conditions, you know. If you serve 225kmh, 230kmh, you can still hit through the court on the serve.

'I may be lacking those five to 10ks extra on the serve to hit through a guy, but that's the way conditions are. I can't complain because it was the same for both of us.'

And when asked how he would get over the Paris defeat, Federer said he would simply look ahead to the grass-court season when he will attempt to win a seventh Wimbledon and 17th Grand Slam title.'You move on,' he said. 'You move on to the grass and forget a little bit.' (BBC)