Tennis-X Notes: NBC Eats Crow Over Federer-Roddick

Roger Federer has reached 13 straight Slam finals...Andy Roddick had blown a two-set lead twice in his career before Friday -- Andrei Pavel in Davis Cup, and Jose Acasuso at Roland Garros...Novak Djokovic is in his second straight Slam semifinal. Djokovic has played 9 hours, 12 minutes in the last two days, and now faces the fittest player on the tour, Rafael Nadal. Punter alert, bet the house...Venus Williams is a perfect 6-0 in Wimbledon semifinal matches...The weather forecast for the weekend is promising...Anna Kournivova went 0-2 in her World TeamTennis debut for the Sacramento Capitals, losing the mixed doubles with Sam Warburg and the women's doubles with Milagros Sequera...This is the second youngest quartet of men's semifinalists (combined ages) in the Open Era at Wimbledon, with three of the four semifinalists aged 21 or under. The youngest group of semifinalists came in 1977, when Bjorn Borg, Jimmy Connors, Vitas Gerulaitis and John McEnroe reached the last four. This is the first time in his 15 Grand Slam semifinal appearances that Roger Federer has been the oldest of the four semifinalists...Roger Federer needed three sets to beat Richard Gasquet in their meeting last year at the Masters Series-Canada...Wimbledon is still 35 matches behind schedule due to the rains...Novak Djokovic and Tomas Berdych have both pulled from Bastad next week...From ESPN's Greg "The Lawn-Mowing American" Garber: "[Marion] Bartoli, frankly, is not built along the lean lines of many players. Rather, she is solid and often stops to catch her breath after active points. Seeing [Pierce] Brosnan [in the crowd], though, was a wake-up call. "I was focusing on Pierce Brosnan because he is so beautiful," she said. "I was just watching him. He was the only one. I said to myself, 'It's not possible I play so bad in front of him. So I try to feel a bit more the ball, play more smartly. I saw he was cheering for me, so I said, 'Oh, maybe it's good.'"...Looks like Andy Murray will pull from LA...Nice Wimbledon.org promo on ESPN, highlighting two players that are retired from the game, time to update the filmstrip...From ESPN's Bonnie DeSimone: "[Richard] Gasquet appeared stunned by his victory afterwards and even more stunned at the fact that his match with [Roger] Federer is scheduled first on Centre Court, at noon local time, since his own match finished at 8 p.m. "Noon?'' he said incredulously when he was informed by French reporters. "Me? It's not true [French expletive]!" He continued to talk, almost to himself, as he left the interview room. "I thought I was in a little bit of [expletive] when I lost the first two sets and was down in the third," Gasquet said. "I still don't know if I won or not." [Andy] Roddick's loss was certainly an upset and changed the menu for NBC's "Breakfast At Wimbledon" on Saturday. It wasn't exactly "Dewey Defeats Truman," but the network jumped the gun with a press release e-mailed to journalists, dated Friday, that said, "After a rain-filled week, Andy Roddick and Roger Federer will meet again on the grass here at Wimbledon in the semifinals tomorrow. Will Federer roll again to his fifth straight Wimbledon championship or will Roddick finally capture the Wimbledon title that's eluded him?"...Stone.