Semifinal matchups set on day 10 of Australian Open

The Czech raced into a 3-0 lead and served for it at 5-3.

Federer joined this unexpected trio with his fifth consecutive straight-sets win of the tournament, though that flawless streak appeared in jeopardy early on.

‘Look, I’m very excited to play Chung, ‘ he said after downing Tomas Berdych in the quarter-finals. “That’s why I was under pressure. They’re great feelings. So, yeah, I just try to enjoy it as much as possible”. Got off to a good start there.

German Angelique Kerber brushed past Madison Keys at the Australian Open, reaching her sixth grand slam semi-final in style.

Prowling the baseline and approaching the net with aggression, Federer smashed 61 winners – nearly three times as many as his opponent – and won 23 points at the net.

Berdych went into the match holding the record for the most number of Australian Open round of 16 appearances by a Czech man with 10 ahead of Ivan Lendl’s eight.

The emergence of Chung and Edmund follows the rise last season of the so-called “NextGen” youngsters, including Canada’s Denis Shapovalov and Russian Andrey Rublev, while Germany’s 20-year-old Alexander Zverev has climbed to four in the rankings.

“We have changed some technical things on his serve, which he’s a lot more comfortable with now”, said South African Godwin, who ended his partnership with big-serving compatriot Kevin Anderson a year ago.

Then there were screengrabs showed him getting into a debate with retired tennis star James Blake about the subject of police brutality.

“Today, victory is for my country, I think tennis is coming up”, he said.

“This is a special one because I won here, my first Grand Slam”, said Kerber, who beat Serena Williams in the 2016 Australian Open final and also won the U.S. Open later that year.

The No.58 ranked player made the semis on Wednesday when he beat another greenhorn in Tennys Sandgren 6-4 7-6 6-3 at the Rod Laver Arena.

But the 36-year-old has never before encountered 21-year-old Chung – on any court, let alone in a grand slam semi-final.

He won the 2015 ATP Most Improved Player award and signalled his intentions with a run to the semis in Munich previous year before his big breakthrough at the NextGen ATP finals in Milan in November.

His disposition is perhaps reflective of his arduous upbringing with a father who is an avid tennis player himself and who doubled as both parent and coach.

He said: “In a way I prefer it this way because I wake up in the morning walking normally”. And he becomes the first of this younger generation to make a Slam semifinal.

The American had a break in the second set and a chance to level the match at one set all, but he gave the break back for 5-4 and lost the set in a tie-break.

“Sandgren subsequently deleted years” worth of tweets for what he hoped would be a “clean start”. Chung admitted. “After the deuce and break point, I was like, “No, keep focused”.

Another lead disappeared as Djokovic fought back from 0-3 to level, but a miraculous hooked forehand victor put Chung 5-3 in front, and it was his turn to play to the crowd.