Roger Federer will go up against Gael Monfils in the quarterfinals of the 2014 US Open tennis tournament on Thursday night at Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York.
Federer, who is eyeing his 18th Grand Slam title, will be heavy favorite heading into his showdown with Monfils, but the second-seeded Swiss reiterated that anything can happen in their upcoming match.
The 17-time Grand Slam champion insisted that winning a match gets harder as the tournament reaches the quarterfinal stage, especially against an opponent of Monfils' caliber.
Federer said that the 20th-seeded French, who scored an upset win against seventh-seeded Grigor Dimitrov in the fourth round on Tuesday, is a dangerous opponent, considering the way he has been performing as of late.
"He's got easy top 10 potential," Federer said of Monfils via the 2014 US Open website. "He's a great mover. He's got a wonderful serve, really, which nobody really talks about because of his athletic movement which stands out so much. His issues have really been just his fitness and his setbacks he's had because of injury. Then sometimes, you know, maybe not wanting to play sometimes because of reasons only he can explain."
The winner of the Federer-Monfils showdown will go up against Marin Cilic of Croatia in the semifinals.
Cilic booked a spot in the final four of the tournament with a huge 6-2, 6-4, 7-6 upset win against sixth-seeded Tomas Berdych of Czech Republic earlier in the day to advance to a final four of a Grand Slam event for the first time since the 2010 Australian Open.
Berdych was a heavy favorite heading into the match, and most fans are already anticipating a semis showdown between him and Federer, but the 28-year-old failed to get into his rhythm right from the opening set of the match.
"I started pretty terribly," Berdych admitted. "My serve was horrible from the beginning. Then obviously it was really tough to catch up. And my serve was off. Basically, when you have a game built on a serve, then it's really tough and difficult to reschedule it and do it a bit differently."
Complete 2014 US Open results and schedule can be viewed here, while the updated brackets are available here.
The Federer-Monfils quarterfinal match will start past 8:00 PM EST, which will be shown live on ESPN and Tennis Channel. Online live stream is available on WatchESPN and US Open Live.
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