3 Sep 2008

Federer sneaks into US Open quarter-finals

12:39 pm on 3 September 2008

Roger Federer came out of an error-filled slump in the nick of time to scrape past 23rd seed Igor Andreev in a 5-set thriller and claim a berth in the quarter-finals of the U.S. Open tennis tournament in New York.

The Swiss second seed, whose record run of 237 successive weeks as world number one was snapped last month by Rafael Nadal, nearly had other valued streaks ended before finally putting it together in the fifth set against the Russian.

Four-times champion Federer, who committed a shocking 60 unforced errors in the match, kept alive an Open win streak that now stands at 31 and extended a streak of reaching every slam quarter-finals since the 2004 Wimbledon.

Federer will meet qualifier Gilles Muller of Luxembourg in the last eight. The 130th-ranked Muller upset Andreev's fifth-seeded compatriot Nikolay Davydenko in 4 sets.