Federer sees of Safin

Federer left Safin shaking his head in bewilderment as he switched on cruise control to clinch his 6-3 7-6 (7-3) 6-4 victory in just one hour and 41 minutes and make Sunday's final without dropping a set.

Although Safin served up predictably the biggest challenge to Federer's reign so far, the Russian still fell woefully short, hindered further by a series of unforced errors which blew his only chance in the second set tie-break.

Federer made a lightning start, holding his first two service games to love and breaking Safin on his first service game to effectively wrap up the first set before the match was eight minutes old.

Safin warmed to his task in the second set, finally fashioning his first two break point opportunities on the Federer serve at 2-1, both of which the Swiss star swatted away.

Safin did force Federer to serve out for a tie-break but made an awful start, flopping two simple backhands into the net to give Federer the sort of advantage he was not in the habit of relinquishing, and the world number one raced into a 4-0 lead.

Safin did rally to pull one mini-break back, but Federer responded by whipping a forehand down the line to fashion four set points, converting his second with an ace to win the breaker 7-3 and move into a two-set lead.

Safin made a poor start to the third set and, after an extraordinary backhand recovery shot by Federer in the fifth game of the third set denied Safin what would normally have been another break point opportunity, Safin's frustration continued to bubble.

He was handed a code violation by umpire Lars Graff for slamming his racquet into his chair at the change of ends after Federer had served out imperiously to move within one game of the match.

Typically, Federer upped his game once more to break Safin and clinch the match after a long baseline rally, whipping a cross-court backhand which left the Russian flailing and the Centre Court crowd once again rising to acclaim his genius.