MIAMI -- Nick Kyrgios didn't wait very long to send a signal to Roger Federer in their Miami Open semifinal Friday evening. In the fifth game of the first set, he hijacked Federer's patented SABR (Sneak Attack By Roger) play, charging forward before Federer had even finished his service motion.

Federer was not impressed. Having already committed to following his serve to net, he took Kyrgios' weak floater and hammered a swinging volley away for a winner.

If Kyrgios' intention was to tweak or annoy Federer, he needn't have bothered.

"I was expecting him to do trick shots and all that stuff," Federer said later. "So I would've been surprised if he didn't do it, or didn't try to do those kind of things. For me, it was really important to do the same -- try actually to also play the game that way. Make him feel that's how I actually also play the game."

Federer is a more reserved man by nature. He was destined to lose a craziest-shot contest with the showboat Kyrgios. Can you really see Federer leaping and then hitting a cross-court forehand from between and behind his legs?

Roger Federer's past two wins at the Miami Open have each come in a third-set tiebreaker. EPA/ERIK S. LESSER

The battle of trick shots wasn't even close, but the Swiss champ prevailed in a far more important struggle, beating Kyrgios in three hours, 10 minutes, 7-6 (9), 6-7 (9), 7-6 (5).

It was a bitter test of nerves and precision marksmanship in which 35-year-old Federer showed greater reserves of mental strength and stamina than his 21-year-old rival. Federer can be beaten at some areas of the game these days, but he's undefeated in the game of inches. He clipped lines and found hair's breadth passing lanes to outlast a player blessed with greater youth and firepower.

"It did feel very good, because you don't very often play three breakers in a match," Federer said. The triumph was that much sweeter because Kyrgios had won their only previous meeting, also in three tiebreakers -- the final one a 14-12 heartbreaker -- two years ago in Madrid. Federer added: "It's nice to win those. And winning breakers is always such a thrill."

The stadium at Crandon Park was jammed to the gills for this match, and the breeze that had set the palm fronds on the grounds rattling through most of the afternoon suddenly died as sunset approached. That's Federer these days; even the breeze stops out of respect for what he has been accomplishing.

Kyrgios had no choice but to play the bad guy. Heck, if Mother Theresa were alive today, she might get booed if she went out to hit a few with Federer. But bad guy is something Kyrgios does well. He seems attracted to the role, even though he complains bitterly when he plays it out and people respond to it in a predictable way.

The crowd was treated to a varied palette of Kyrgios' antics, but the interesting side is that these days he is finding ways to express himself and clown around without his game imploding. His concentration rarely wavered throughout the course of the match, even when he was baited by the wildly pro-Federer sentiments of the crowd. If he had a shortcoming, it was the carelessness that creeps into his game now and then.

"[Federer's] obviously the crowd favorite anywhere he plays with what he's done for the game," Kyrgios said after he lost. "But I thought I was responding well to the crowd. I feel like my level of tennis -- it's always been high. But [now] mentally, I'm competing for every point. That's making the difference."

It made enough of a difference to turn this match into another game of inches for Federer, who just the previous day had survived a harrowing third-set tiebreaker in his quarterfinal with another power server, Tomas Berdych.

There was an unremarkable turning point in this match Friday, if that can even be said about so close a contest. It was right after Federer lost the second-set tiebreaker. As he sat during the changeover, he found himself oddly relaxed for a guy who had just blown two match points. A guy who now found himself dead even in what was becoming a knock-down, drag-out battle with an electrifying youth whose serve and forehand came at Federer like a yellow blur.

"I was just sitting there and actually feeling good about the match still, even though I had just wasted match points," he said. "I felt like, 'OK, I went for the backhand on the return on the second serve. Maybe I should have chipped it. I don't know. OK, it's fine. I'll move on with it.' "

Federer's calm mood lasted throughout the third set. As it wore on, each man seemed less and less capable of doing anything with the other's serve. The tiebreaker was inevitable, and when it arrived, Federer was better prepared for it mentally. He gifted Kyrgios an early mini-break, but he leveled again for 3-all. Whereupon the crowd broke out the South American soccer chant, "Ole, Ole, Ole, Ro-ger, Ro-ger."

From there, the margin for error in this game of inches became even more narrow. But Federer is well-schooled and equipped for that challenge. His serve is less explosive than that of Kyrgios, but Federer is much better at backing it up with purpose.

"His serve and first shot is, I think, by far the best on tour," Kyrgios said. "I've played all the top four, a lot of the top guys, and his first two shots, it's so hard to do anything against. You feel like you're making a return, and then he's right on it and hits a winner. You don't get that much rhythm. He's a great player."

Federer ended the match with a precise serve that clipped the sideline, wide, and ticked off the frame of the lunging Kyrgios' racket. As the crowd roared, and Federer flung up his arms, the man who had taunted Federer with an impersonation of the SABR began savagely smashing his racket on the court, over and over.

Live by the SABR, die by the SABR.