Federer Tops Tsitsipas, Seeks 10th Basel Title v De Minaur

Roger Federer will seek his 10th Basel title Sunday against Alex De Minaur.

The 38-year-old Swiss eased past the dangerous and in-form Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-4, 6-4 to reach his 15th final at his home event.

Federer broke the Greek early in both sets and all but cruised to his 23rd straight win on the event’s center court.

“It was nice to come out strong. It was a really intense 35 or 40 minutes to start. I had a good middle section which gave me the first set and the lead in the second set, and never looked back,” Federer said. “It’s hard to believe that I’m in another Basel final. It’s super exciting.”

De Minaur had a much, much tougher afternoon against the towering American Reilly Opelka, going the distance with a 7-6(2), 6-7(4), 7-6(3) decision.

The Australian, who improves to 4-0 against Opelka, never made an unforced error in the last two sets, and stayed steady when it mattered the most.

“I knew coming in this was the match to expect. In the second set I did everything right, he just came up with two very big points, very big backhand passes on crucial points,” De Minaur said. “I knew I just had to say, ’Too good’, and get ready for another third set and hopefully take care of my serve and come the tie-break, guess right a couple times and make a couple of returns.”

Federer and De Minaur have never played.