Federer, Djokovic face hurdle to set up date with U.S. Open destiny

— The question buzzing around the men’s quest for the U.S. Open tennis title here is a two-parter.

Is Roger Federer, at 33, young enough and spry enough and fit enough and still good enough to win another major; or, is Novak Djokovic still just that one notch better, as he was this summer at Wimbledon?

The question, of course, is slightly premature.

Federer and Djokovic still have to win one more match to get to that widely anticipated final — as widely anticipated as it was at Wimbledon, when it lived up to its billing and Djokovic won in five sets.

Djokovic, seeded No. 1, will play the first semifinal on the Arthur Ashe Stadium Court on Saturday. He will go against No. 10-seeded Kei Nishikori. In the head-to-heads, each has won once. But they also haven’t played since the gritty Japanese star beat the Serb in a semifinal in a tournament in Switzerland in 2011.

Two things about that: Nishikori won the deciding set, 6-0. That was also the year Djokovic won three of the four majors and was a semifinalist at the French.

Both had rugged quarterfinals. Djokovic had to outlast a rocket launching Andy Murray, but had the match mostly go his way after they traded tiebreakers in the first two sets.

Nishikori has been the ultimate survivor. He got through his fourth-round match against Canada’s Milos Raonic in five sets and 4 hours 19 minutes, then won his quarterfinal against Australian Open champion Stan Wawrinka in five more sets and another 4 hours 15 minutes.

In the second semifinal, Federer, the Swiss master, will square off against Marin Cilic, a big-serving Croatian, who has never beaten him in five matches.

Federer, seeded No. 2, will be no stranger to this stage. He won the U.S. Open five times in a row, starting in 2004, and is looking to reach his 26th major final. He has won 17 of those, a record. This is also a record 60th consecutive Grand Slam tournament appearance for him.

Since his loss to Djokovic in the Wimbledon final, Federer has won 14 of 15 matches, including Thursday night’s incomparable thriller over Gaels Monfils of France, who won the first two sets.

“I gave my best,” Monfils said late Thursday night. “Simply, Roger was too good at the end. You know, it’s OK. I need a bit of time to forget this.”

Cilic was surprisingly dominant in his Thursday afternoon quarterfinal against the Czech Republic’s Tomas Berdych. Cilic is seeded No. 14, Berdych No. 6. But Cilic’s straight-set victory included 19 aces and 46 winners.

During the U.S. Open last year, Cilic was absent. He was serving a suspension imposed by tennis, when he tested positive for excessive glucose levels. The suspension, originally nine months, was shortened to four when it was found the substance he took had been given to him by a member of his team and he took it unknowingly.

Of the suspension, Cilic said Thursday, “It angered me how all the process went, because it was not fair to me.”

This will be Cilic’s second Grand Slam semifinal, after his Australian berth in 2010. The last Croatian to reach the U.S. Open semifinals was Goran Ivanisevic in 1996. Ivanisevic, the 2001 Wimbledon champion, lost that year in the Open semifinals to Pete Sampras. Now, Ivanisevic is Cilic’s coach.

Interestingly, the other three men’s semifinalists are also coached by former Grand Slam tournament winners. Stefan Edberg coaches Federer, Boris Becker coaches Djokovic and Michael Chang coaches Nishikori.

bill.dwyre@latimes.com

Twitter: @DwyreLATimes