Agassi is crushed by super Federer

"He just outplayed me, he was too good," said the 34-year-old American. "His game was way better than mine today. It's a hard game to stop for many reasons and I certainlydidn't do anything to make a dent in that. He does everything well and a lot of things great.

"You give a guy like that a lead and he can stretch it pretty quick. I wasn't picking his serve up well so he got a lot of free points."

Federer was always in command. A single break of serve was enough to win each set, Federer holding his own serve with relative ease, firing down 22 aces - as many as he had managed in total in the previous four rounds.

Federer broke for a 4-2 lead in the first set when Agassi, trying to put a little extra on a second serve, double-faulted. Then, as he did again and again while winning three Grand Slam titles last year, Federer found an extra gear when he needed it.

The Swiss saved four break points - two with aces - while serving for the set in a game that went to deuce six times. A third ace gave Federer his third set point, and he turned a good service return from Agassi into a backhand winner down the line.

Federer broke Agassi in the first game of each of the next two sets and fended off the American's only other break point, in the fourth game of the second set, with a pair of service winners sandwiched around an ace.

Federer finished the match off with a serve that Agassi lunged for but could only strike into the net.

The world No1 said: "A good start always helps, especially against Andre and I think I really served well. From the baseline it was clear who was the better man so I had to serve better."

Federer's semi-final opponent, Safin, also had an easy passage into the last four as he hammered Dominik Hrbaty of Slovakia 6-2, 6-4, 6-2 in 90 minutes today.

Hrbaty, seeded 20, had beaten French Open champion Gaston Gaudio and former Australian Open winner Thomas Johansson on his way to the last eight but he was no match for the fourth seed from Russia.

The roof on the Rod Laver Arena was closed because of extreme heat, and Safin coped far better than his rival.

Safin said: "It helped me a lot to play indoors. Dominik wanted to play outdoors but at the last minute the tournament director said they were closing the roof. I played the best tennis I could. I knew we were going to meet in the quarterfinals, so I practised with Dominik three times last week."

Hrbaty lost his serve twice in each set and made 29 unforced errors. Safin served 14 aces, the fastest at 137mph.