It took seven match-points and he had to save one along the way but Marat Safin has slayed the tennis world's dragon, beating Roger Federer to book a spot in the Australian Open final.

Safin staved off a match-point against him in the fourth set and faltered on six match-points of his own before winning 5-7 6-4 5-7 7-6 (8-6) 9-7 in what could be regarded as one of the greatest grand slam semi-finals of all time.

On Sunday, Safin plays the winner of the Lleyton Hewitt-Andy Roddick semi, when he will attempt to become the first man since Stefan Edberg in 1985 to win the title here after surviving a match-point.

In the meantime he will bask in the satisfaction of defeating the man that no-one thought could be beaten.

Federer had won 24 successive matches against top ten opponents entering tonight's encounter, and had won 30 straight against all comers (including three matches at Kooyong), with his last loss at the Athens Olympics.

The Swiss had developed an air of invincibility rarely, if ever, witnessed in the men's game.

He had not only won all his previous four grand slam semi-finals, he had never dropped a set in any of them.

Perhaps only an iconoclast, a convention-breaker, like Safin could have believed he could win and could have maintained that faith when he went behind two sets to one.

Surely none of Safin's 24 previous birthdays, or many more to come, could have brought a present as welcome as this one.

The gift-wrapping would be an Australian Open final win at his third attempt, having been upset by Thomas Johansson in 2002 and beaten by Federer last year.

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