Tuesday's notes from Melbourne Park

FOUR LANGUAGES QUADRUPLES THE FUN FOR ROGER FEDERER

Tell Roger Federer a joke in French, and he might not laugh like he would if you told it in English. Or Swiss German, for that matter.

Tennis' multilingual maestro says his sense of humor is different depending on what language gear his mind is running in at the time.

The 16-time Grand Slam champion is fluent in English, French, German and Swiss German, the distinctly different version of the Germanic lingo spoken in his homeland. Add into the mix some South African blood on his mother's side and Federer starts to appear a bit like a one-man United Nations of tennis.

The downside is that after each match, the 29-year-old Swiss appears at news conferences where he is asked in English to talk about his game, his rivals, his standings, his prospects for becoming the greatest tennis player ever, and the like. Then, he does it again in French. Then German. And so on ...

"Sometimes I wish I never told anybody I learned French or something like that," Federer said Tuesday, adding quickly that he's proud to have learned the language and all the others because it gives him a chance to relate to more people than he could otherwise.

"That it comes at a cost, sure, but I don't mind it. I try to have fun with it," he told reporters during the English part of his news conference Tuesday after beating countryman Stanislas Wawrinka 6-1, 6-3, 6-3 to reach his eighth consecutive Australian Open semifinal.

"I have almost, I don't want to say characters, but I have different humor in all the different languages, which is kind of fun for me, too," he said. "Getting to know myself through different languages is actually quite interesting for me."

One language Federer does not speak is Spanish, the native tongue of arch rival Rafael Nadal. The top two players in men's tennis are on track to meet Sunday in their 8th Grand Slam final.

Federer said the two have become friendlier over the years, and while they don't exactly hang out together, they chat and see each other regularly.

"We talk about many things, but tennis probably being one of them at times, yeah," Federer said.

DOUBLING UP

Flavia Pennetta is consoling herself after her exit from the Australian Open singles draw with renewed determination in the doubles.

Pennetta and Argentinian partner Gisela Dulko are the top seeds in the women's doubles and defeated South Africa's Natalie Grandin and Vladimira Uhlirova of the Czech Republic 6-0, 6-3 on Tuesday to reach the semifinals.

That match came a day after her fourth-round defeat to the Czech Republic's Petra Kvitova in the singles, which kept her from her third Grand Slam quarterfinal.

"Sometimes it is not easy to back up after a loss in the singles, because you are angry and you really do not want to touch the racket," Pennetta, seeded 22nd in the singles, wrote in a newspaper column.

She does it out of loyalty to her friend, she said, and because it's fun.

"But I can see why the top-ranking men tend not to play doubles," Pennetta wrote. "Playing five sets is completely different to the women's game. It is like another sport and I can understand if they have just completed a five-setter then they may think it is better to use the next day for recover rather than play doubles."

Many of the top women play both forms, contesting singles and doubles matches on alternate days in many tournaments, including Grand Slams. The women play best of three sets in the singles, and both men and women play best of three in the doubles.

Unlike the women's doubles, where sometimes even the Williams sisters combine to chase Grand Slam titles, most men in the top 10 rarely consider playing doubles at the majors.

AUSTRALIAN D'OH-PEN

Homer Simpson is on the tennis tour, and getting some serious backstage access.

The renowned coach potato - or at least a small plastic representation of him - is popping up all over Melbourne Park, thanks to a jape Stanislas Wawrinka is playing with a friend. Wawrinka, who lost an all-Swiss quarterfinal to Roger Federer, is taking snapshots of the toy and posting them as links to his Twitter feed.

There's Homer, munching on a doughnut, standing between some fried eggs and tomatoes in the middle of Wawrinka's breakfast plate; and there he is teetering on the peak of Federer's cap - two days before their singles match-up.

"It's a joke with a friend from the beginning of the year," Wawrinka said. "I'm doing some picture for Twitter, and all the fans are asking about some more pictures. So we'll see how it's going to be this year."

With Sapa-AP