Roger Federer makes French Open final

Oh. My. Gawd.

If Roger Federer is trying to give his loyal fans heart failure, he succeeded today. The tennis champ was stretched to five sets in the semifinals of the French Open today by Juan Martin del Potro who is ranked fifth in the world. My pal Henry, watching in London, and I were emailing each other like crazy because only we could understand each other’s anguish during the match. The outcome was in doubt all the way to the near end before Roger finally prevailed 3-6, 7-6, 2-6, 6-1, 6-4.

I like Roger’s chances on Sunday against Robin Soderling who followed his shock win over Rafael Nadal with two more victories to advance to the final of the world’s most prestigious clay court tournament.

If Federer wins, he joins some heady company as one of only six men to have ever won all four of the sport’s four gand slam titles (Wimbledon, US Open, Australian Open and French Open) and ties Pete Sampras as the all-time leader with 14 major titles. Sampras was never able to win the French Open nor were such all-time greats as Jimmy Connors, Stefan Edberg, Boris Becker and John McEnroe.

Roger will be competing in his fourth straight final in Paris where he had previously always faced an unstoppable Nadal who also defeated Federer in the 2005 semifinals.