Roger Federer moved to within one match of finally j winning the French Open | when he came from behind ; to defeat giant Argentinian _ Juan Martin del Potro in
Friday's semifinal.
The second seed, who has lost the last three finaL here to Rafael Nadal, took everything Del Potro could fling at him and then pounced when the South American wilted to win a cliffhanger 3-6,7-6 (7/2), 2-6,6-1.6-4.
in Sunday's final he will take on Swedish surprise Robin Soderling who sent top seed Nadal crashing out in a fourth round shocker.
Soderling, seeded 23, had earlier reached the championship match with a battling 6-3,7-5. 5-7, 4-6, 6-4 semifinal win over Fernando Gonzalez of Chile.
It was the second five-setter for Federer in the tournament having battled back from two sets to love down against Tommy Haas in the fourth round.
That's one more step and I am so happy to have comeback like that," he said.
"For a moment there Juan Martin was playing so well, but I had some luck on my side and I fought hard.
"Soderling played a great match against Gonzalez to be in the final. He deserves to be there because he also beat Nadal and he was th e man to beat in this tournament."
Del Potro had dropped just the one set en route to the last four while Federer had dropped four but with the world No.2 having won all five of their previous matches in straight sets he was the big favourite.
Federer had the first break point to go 3-1 up, but failed to take it and quickly fell 0-40 down on his following serve.
He staved off two of the break points against him, but Del Potro converted the third to lead 3-2.
Del Potro easily held his next two serves hitting his first serves at well over 200 kilometres per hour and there was a stunned silence as he then broke Federer to love in the following game taking the set in 38 minutes.
Federer steadied the ship as they moved on to the second set but he was still unable to put any real pressure on the South American's big serve which he was holding with ease.
Serves dominated until the 10th game when Federer chose the wrong time to come into the net on a first serve and allowed Del Potro to blast a backhand past him.
The Argentinian got to 0-30 before Federer clawed his way back eliciting a huge roar of approval from a packed centre court crowd.
Still Federer could do nothing to menace the Del Potro serve and it needed a superb tie-break from him, taking the first three points and then winning it 7/2, to avoid having to face a two sets to love deficit for the second time in the tournament.
Federer let out a roar of selfencouragement as he clinched that, but the frown was back on his face minutes later when he played a loose service game to hand back the initiative to Del Potro at the start of the third set