Seven-time Wimbledon champion Roger Federer continued his dominance on Friday and advanced to his 11th final at the All England Club.
The 35-year-old Swiss and third seed defeated 11th-seeded Tomas Berdych 7-6 (4), 7-6 (4), 6-4 of the Czech Republic in the semifinals on Centre Court in London.
Federer, 3 1/2 weeks shy of turning 36, received a standing ovation after the win and he will face Croatian seventh-seeded Marin Cilic, who outlasted American Sam Querrey 6-7 (6), 6-4, 7-6 (3), 7-5 in the first semifinal.
Federer has not dropped a single set over the course of this year’s event. He will be seeking his 19th Grand Slam in his pursuit of a record eighth Wimbledon title.
“I feel very privileged to be in another final,” Federer said afterward. “I’ve got the pleasure to play on Centre Court another time. I can’t believe it’s almost true again. I’m happy to have a day off to reflect on what I’ve done at the tournament.”
Federer has now reached 29 Grand Slam finals and for the third time in his career has reached the Wimbledon final without dropping a set, having also achieved the feat in 2006 and 2008.
Berdych, who beat Federer in the quarterfinals in 2010, challenged Federer throughout the match.
After winning the first set, Federer got off to a shaky start in the second before recovering in the middle and denying Berdych a break, eventually sealing his 90th win at the All England Club.
Federer, who won the Australian Open in January for his 18th Grand Slam title, decided to skip the clay-court season, including the French Open, to prepare for the grass and hard-court seasons, with his eye on Wimbledon.
Cilic will be seeking his second Grand Slam trophy, winning his only major title three years ago in New York at the 2014 U.S. Open when he beat Federer in the semifinals and Kei Nishikori in the final. Cilic lost in the Wimbledon quarterfinals the past three years.
Federer leads 6-1 in the head-to-head series against Cilic.
“Marin’s a great guy, I know him really well,” Federer said. “I’m happy for him he’s in his first Wimbledon final. He crushed me at the U.S. Open a few years ago, he played lights out.”
Cilic reached his first Wimbledon final in defeating Querrey, the No. 24 seed, in two hours, 56 minutes.
“It’s absolutely unbelievable,” Cilic, who improved to 5-0 lifetime against Querrey, said afterward. “Today was a really hard-fought battle. Sam played high-level tennis. After the first set I felt I was just a little bit better on the return games and overall I felt the level was really, really high.
“I felt Sam was not tight at all and that pushed me to play big tennis toward the end of the match. I was lucky a little bit to get that break back in the fourth.”
The two 6-foot-6 players played at the 2012 Wimbledon in a match that Cilic won 17-15 in the fifth set.
Querrey, 29, was bidding to become the first American to reach the men’s singles final at Wimbledon since Andy Roddick, who lost a five-set match to Federer in 2009. There has not been an American man in a singles final in 42 of the past 43 Grand Slam events.
Cilic finished with 25 aces and won 88 percent of the points on his first serve, and produced 70 winners against only 21 unforced errors. Querrey had 13 aces with 46 winners and 26 unforced errors.
In the fourth set, Querrey got an early break before Cilic bounced back and then broke for the fourth time in the final game.
“Marin is just really good. I mean, he’s tough on both sides,” Querrey said. “I kind of felt like he pushed me around a little bit today. I had that break in the fourth (set). When he broke me back, he just played a great game.
“(It) kind of deflated me a little bit. But he just does everything really well. He didn’t seem to have many holes. I played him a handful of times before. Lost a bunch. But he did seem to play at a really high level today.”