Swiss star Roger Federer who is chasing the 85th singles title of his career, had another hard-fought win similar to the previous round to reach the final in Istanbul. On the inaugural edition of the clay-court event, TEB BNP Paribas Istanbul Open, the top seeded 33-year-old Swiss star had an unforeseen beginning, but battled his way back to topple Diego Schwartzman 2-6, 6-2, 7-5 to advance into his 128th overall final.

Losing the first set 6-2 versus Schwartzman just under half an hour under the shocking eyes of the crowd packing up Garanti Koza Arena, Federer found his rhythm to level the match at one set all with the same scoreline. In a compelling decisive set, both players held serves until the eleventh game in which Roger took advantage of Schwartzman’s low percentage of second serves. After his quarterfinal against Daniel Gimeno-Traver which lasted 2 hours and 27 minutes, this time Federer again laboured his way through another long match of 1 hour and 50 minutes, ending the third set 7-5.

Federer is now 3-0 against Schwartzman who got knocked out from his maiden tour level semi-final appearance. Having reached the 200th clay-court-win milestone, Federer will be seeking his 203th win in tomorrow’s final against Pablo Cuevas who stunned Grigor Dimitrov 6-2, 6-4.