Switzerland's Man of the Year became a hot favourite to win the Australia Open following a consummate performance at Melbourne Park.

Second seed Roger Federer beat Argentinian eighth seed David Nalbandian 7-5 6-4 5-7 6-3 in a classic quarter-final.

Widely acknowledged as the most talented player in the world, Wimbledon champion Federer is only two matches away from his second grand slam title and the official No.1 world ranking.

His defeat of Nalbandian sets up a semi-final showdown with third seed Juan Carlos Ferrero of Spain who earlier Wednesday beat Hicham Arazi 6-1 7-6 (8-6) 7-6 (7-5).

For Federer, the quarter-final revealed the power he can muster at critical moments and showed again the silky ground strokes that are a feature of his play.

At 5-5 in the first set with Nalbandian holding two break points at 15-40, Federer did the sort of thing Pete Sampras made a career of doing - he served himself out of trouble with four consecutive aces.

Federer said he thought it was the turning point of the match, even though it came within the first half hour of a contest that stretched to two hours, 41 minutes.

The world No.2 also said he thought the standard of tonight's match might have been of lower than was expected.

"Maybe it wasn't the best match to watch," he said.

"I thought we didn't live up to expectations."

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