US Open: Roger Federer finds Berdych loss a sore one to take

Not since 2003 had Federer lost before the semi-final stage at Flushing Meadows, winning five titles in that time, and he went into the tournament on a high after a stellar summer.

But Berdych had not read the script and he produced a performance of devastating power to stun the world number one 7-6 (7/1), 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 and set up a semi-final clash with Andy Murray on Saturday. Federer clearly had not seen this coming and mostly he was disappointed with himself for making too many errors, especially in the first two sets. He said: “I really expected myself to play better tonight. Especially at night, I have had such a great record.

“I felt good. It’s such an amazing summer I had. I really thought I was going to come out and play a solid match. I didn’t do that tonight. Obviously there is a bit of a letdown now.”

Federer had never lost in 23 night-session matches at the US Open while Berdych had never played one until Wednesday night, but the conditions were certainly to his liking. It seemed like it would be business as usual when Federer began brilliantly and broke serve in the first game, but Berdych was also playing at a high level and, when the top seed’s dropped, the Czech capitalised. The first-set tie-break was a horror show from Federer and he was in huge trouble at two breaks down in the second set. He retrieved one but  Berdych did not waver serving out the set and then went a break up in the third, to the disbelief of the huge crowd, who were firmly behind Federer.

Finally the 31-year-old stirred, reeling off five games in a row to get one set back, but in a fourth set of supreme quality it was Berdych who struck first in the eighth game and four huge serves finished off the job.  Federer is guaranteed still to be No 1 at the end of the tournament because Novak Djokovic is the champion and cannot gain points, but the Swiss faces a battle to finish 2012 on top.