of-sorts Roger Federer smashed his racket in frustration as he fell to a 3-6, 6-2, 6-3 defeat to Serbia's Novak Djokovic in the semifinal of the Sony Ericsson Open Friday. Djokovic, ranked third, will now play the winner of the second semi between Britain's Andy Murray and Argentine Juan Martin del Potro in Sunday's final. After Del Potro eliminated Rafael Nadal Thursday, the Miami crowd backed Federer in the hope of seeing one of the world's two best players in Sunday's final. But Federer, who made 47 unforced errors, did not look like the man who dominated the sport for so long. After winning the first set comfortably against an error-prone Djokovic in just 25 minutes, Federer faded badly in the second. In windy conditions, the Swiss won just 57 percent of first serve points in the second and it got worse in the third as Djokovic broke at the first attempt. Down 30-0 in the third game of the final set, Federer played a forehand long and responded by hurling his racket to the ground, totally disfiguring it and drawing jeers from the crowd. Four years ago at the same venue, Federer was down two sets to Nadal when he smashed his racket and then came back to win in a five-set thriller in the final. This time, although Federer got the crowd going and won two games in a row from 4-0 down, Djokovic kept his cool to secure just his third win in 10 attempts against Federer. Federer blamed the conditions for a large part of his loss. “I thought I was playing okay in the first set but it was always going to be tough in the wind,” he told reporters. The Swiss said he also had the sun in his eyes during the ball toss. “It's the same thing for both players. Once one guy gets the upper hand, the other guy is a bit uncertain. It's tough but he struggled big time in the first set,” said the second seed. “I finished worse than him. He played so bad in the first set, I had a great effort by finishing even worse than him.” Djokovic was pleased by the way he kept his composure once he had got the upper hand. “He just wasn't playing anything really special. He was just playing really wisely and changing the pace and playing a lot of short slices on my backhand. “That's where he opened up the opportunity to make offensive shots. That's what it did. Afterwards, I was the one who was changing a lot of pace and I was playing a lot of spins and just waiting patiently,” he said. Del Potro had scored a dramatic 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 victory over world number one Rafael Nadal on Thursday to reach the semifinals of the Sony Ericsson Open. Big-serving Del Potro, who came back from 3-0 down in the third set, will face Andy Murray for a place in the final after the Briton crushed an injury-hampered Fernando Verdasco of Spain 6-1, 6-2. The tall Argentine takes his place in the last four of a Masters event for the first time with the crowd-pleasing victory. It was also his first win over Nadal at the fifth attempt.
