Nobody would have bet against Roger Federer being the first man into the semi- finals of Wimbledon this year.
He has been the form player of the tournament, only dropping one set on his way to his seventh consecutive Wimbledon semi.
His skill in dispatching giant Ivo Karlovic, who hit 160 aces throughout his run in SW19, was nothing short of stunning.
It was simply too easy.
Should the Swiss star win the title for the sixth time, he will regain the tag as the best male player in the world, and possibly of the modern era.
There were sceptics who thought his chances of another Grand Slam were over following his loss here last year, but he has proved those critics wrong, and is looking unbeatable.
Tommy Haas, the oldest of the four semi-finalists, took Federer to five sets at the French Open last month, and even had break points to serve for the match in the third set.
He crumbled, Federer motored, and the match was over.
It will take a miracle for the German veteran to even take a set off the world number two.
He enjoyed a splendid win over world number four Novak Djokovic in the quarters, but the Serb does not look like himself.
Not to take credit away from the 24th seed, a clever match was played, flummoxing the fourth seed into submission.
But the 14-time Grand Slam Champion will not be outplayed by the former world number two.
Federer will reach another final and will no doubt be the favourite to make history.
Wimbledon blog: Semi-final preview
Nobody would have bet against Roger Federer being the first man into the semi- finals of Wimbledon this year.
He has been the form player of the tournament, only dropping one set on his way to his seventh consecutive Wimbledon semi.
His skill in dispatching giant Ivo Karlovic, who hit 160 aces throughout his run in SW19, was nothing short of stunning.
It was simply too easy.
Should the Swiss star win the title for the sixth time, he will regain the tag as the best male player in the world, and possibly of the modern era.
There were sceptics who thought his chances of another Grand Slam were over following his loss here last year, but he has proved those critics wrong, and is looking unbeatable.
Tommy Haas, the oldest of the four semi-finalists, took Federer to five sets at the French Open last month, and even had break points to serve for the match in the third set.
He crumbled, Federer motored, and the match was over.
It will take a miracle for the German veteran to even take a set off the world number two.
He enjoyed a splendid win over world number four Novak Djokovic in the quarters, but the Serb does not look like himself.
Not to take credit away from the 24th seed, a clever match was played, flummoxing the fourth seed into submission.
But the 14-time Grand Slam Champion will not be outplayed by the former world number two.
Federer will reach another final and will no doubt be the favourite to make history.
US data shows unemployment on rise
About 467,000 people in the US lost their jobs in June, raising the national unemployment rate to a 26-year-high of 9.5 per cent, data from the US labour department has shown.
The information, which was released on Thursday, marks a steep increase in job losses over the previous month, when 322,000 people became unemployed.
The unemployment rate for in the June report rose by 0.1 per cent from the 9.5 per cent rate in the previous month’s survey.
Speaking after the report, Barack Obama, the US president, said that he remains "deeply concerned" about the scale of job losses across the country.
Coming up with both a short-term and longer-term solution to the country's economic troubles is "one of the things that I'm most focused on", he told the Associated Press news agency.
Obama said he is confident that his economic team has succeeded in bringing stability to the housing and financial markets, but he admitted that more work needs to be done to create jobs.
Eurozone jobless hits ten-year high
Unemployment in the 16-nation euro zone has climbed to 9.5 per cent, its highest rate in a decade, EU data shows.
More than 15 million people are out of work across the zone, with around 273,000 jobs lost in May, the Eurostat data agency estimated.
The increase in jobless was expected, with the eurozone experiencing a 2.5 per cent drop in output in the first quarter of 2009.
"Deep and extended economic contraction, depressed business confidence and deteriorating profitability is pushing unemployment up sharply across the eurozone," Howard Archer, an economist at consultants IHS Global Insight, said.
The May eurozone unemployment rate was up from 9.3 per cent in April and 7.4 per cent in May 2008.
US launches major Afghan assault
US forces have launched a major military operation in southern Afghanistan in the first big push to drive the Taliban out of a stronghold since Barack Obama became US president.
Up to 4,000 marines, backed by Nato aircraft and a 650-strong Afghan force, are moving into towns in Helmand province, where the Taliban has been intensifying its challenge to the Kabul government and allied forces.
Pentagon officials say the plan - said to be the largest US marine offensive since Vietnam - is not just to inflict casualties against the enemy, but to dig in and hold on to territory.
"We're gonna go there and go to the far reaches where the Taliban is not looking for us, where they're not expecting a fight, where they're not sitting in prepared defensive positions and that's gonna keep them off-balance," spokesman Captain Zachary Martin said.
Helmand province is one of the Taliban's main heartlands in southern Afghanistan and produces the largest share of the country's opium crop, which supplies about 90 per cent of the world's heroin.
'Loss of support'
Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr, reporting from Kabul, said a similar offensive had been attempted in the same region in April last year, but US and UK troops pulled out afterwards and the Taliban moved back.
She said this time the "US forces say they will stay there and train local forces until they can take over".
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