Marat Safin said he almost buckled under the pressure before beating world number one Roger Federer on his seventh match point in an extraordinary Australian Open semi-final on Thursday.
Safin reached his third final with the 5-7, 6-4, 5-7, 7-6, 9-7 win over Federer, the man who beat him in last year's final.
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"For some reason I found the power to fight, to wait for my opportunities and eventually they came," said Safin, who was also beaten in the 2002 Australian final by Swede Thomas Johansson.
"It's too much pressure even when you have a match point because you really have to build a point to win it," he said.
"Normally he toys with all the other players with all respect to everybody. It's incredible what type of game he can play," Safin said.
The Russian will play either third seed Lleyton Hewitt of Australia or second seed Andy Roddick in the final.
Safin himself saved one match point in the fourth set tiebreak with an audacious lob. Federer was left with no option but to attempt a forehand between the legs in a mad scramble to get the ball back.
"I was lucky to be honest. I had no other choice but to just lob him, the only chance he had to play was between the legs," Safin said.
"After that I couldn't take my match points and to come back to still fight to win, it's a little bit difficult," he said.
"Hopefully I'll have enough energy in the final to be able to fight," Safin said.
"Roddick is in great shape. Hewitt, he's going to play with his home crowd, so it's not going to be easy at all," he said.
