There’s more to tennis than merely hitting a bright-colored ball. Fitness, psychology, and movement are all part of a winning equation in this sport–just ask the many competitors who have had to retire from the 2009 Australian Open for one reason or another.

Yet, as often as tennis matches are decided for reasons other than shotmaking, it remains that the ability to swing the weapon in your hand is the central aspect of the game played on a rectangle sliced into several different boxes. If you don’t know what to do with a racket, you can’t make a living in tennis.

Tuesday night in Rod Laver Arena, Roger Federer reminded a silently amazed crowd–and a powerless 20-year-old from Argentina–how well he can whack a small sphere around a rectangle.

Intent on putting a sluggish fourth-round performance behind him, Federer rose to the height of his powers in a breathtaking blowout win over Juan Martin Del Potro. The 6-3, 6-0, 6-0 shellacking–which lasted just 80 minutes–did more than propel the Swiss into his 19th consecutive Grand Slam singles semifinal. The thrashing told the tennis world that Sunday’s sloppy five-set win over Tomas Berdych was an aberration and not something to be expected on a regular basis.

With Del Potro reaching his second straight Grand Slam quarterfinal, the No. 6 player in the world–seeded eighth for this tournament–intended to announce his arrival as an elite player. Instead, the 27-year-old veteran on the other side of the net showed the young Argentine how far he’ll have to go to win a major title.

One of the more remarkable aspects of this match is that in the first set and the beginning of the second set, Del Potro really didn’t play that poorly. The tall and lanky challenger resisted the Swiss champion with above-average defense, chasing down overheads and returning them with interest. Del Potro’s court coverage temporarily blunted the blistering groundstrokes of the No. 2 seed, who was dialed in from the very start of the proceedings. Del Potro would have beaten anyone outside the top 10 with the level of play he exhibited in that first set. Against a full-flight Federer, he got whacked by a 6-3 score. Del Potro’s defense remained solid for the next few games, but with Federer refusing to miss at the start of the second set, the Argentine–still not accustomed to the second week of a slam–began to lose faith. Under the circumstances, anyone other than Rafael Nadal or Andy Murray probably would have done the same thing.

Del Potro slumped his shoulders, lost some of the vigor that enabled him to compete on reasonable terms, and saw his appetite vanish. Sensing his opponent’s negative outlook, a ravenous Federer pounced, and as a result, the hungry champion–looking for yet another Grand Slam trophy–was able to eat a pair of bagels in the second and third sets. The late-night breakfast enabled the Swiss to get off the court before midnight in a match that started at 10:15 p.m. in Melbourne. After seeing what happened with Novak Djokovic following the Serb’s late fourth-round match on Sunday, Federer has to be relieved that he’ll be fresh for his semifinal showdown against Andy Roddick.

Just how grand was the display fashioned by Federer? So many words have been written, so much ink spilled, so much bandwidth used, in order to describe the majesty of this peerless performer’s brilliance on the occasions when he finds perfect clarity on the court. The sight of seeing Federer locked in the zone all great athletes hope to attain is an experience that has given tennis fans the thrill of ecstasy over the past five years. That familiar feeling returned on Tuesday night, as manifested in so many ways. While Federer was thoroughly businesslike in this quarterfinal conquest, the Swiss was equally artful and balletic as he annihilated his Argentine counterpart. A few snapshots told the tale of a virtuoso performance:

* On multiple occasions, Federer faked a drop shot and pushed a gentle off-pace forehand to Del Potro’s backhand corner. The combination of creative thinking and seemingly effortless execution made it hard to determine whether Federer was bored with the progression of the lopsided match, or immensely pleased about the chance to open up his arsenal. At any rate, his faked drop shots indicated just how thoroughly Fed was able to toy with his opponent.

* Very early in the third set, Federer broke Del Potro by carving under a forehand drop shot (one he didn’t fake). The amount of touch was perfect, but what added to the beauty of the shot was that the ball spun sideways after bouncing on Del Potro’s side of the court. Novak Djokovic routinely uses a world-class drop shot to win cheap points, but on the occasion when Federer uses a dropper, the Swiss executes the shot better than anyone else in men’s tennis.

* Another sign that Federer is feeling full of himself is when he runs around the backhand return to crush a forehand outside the doubles alley. The Swiss superstar’s ability to not only read the Del Potro serve, but blast it with considerable consistency, applied the kind of pressure that gave the Argentine ample reason to question himself on the court. Perhaps sensing that a decisive win would pay off in future matches between the two, Federer never let up against Del Potro and made sure that his young opponent would carry the memory of this loss for some time to come.

All in all, Federer not only won yet another slam quarterfinal in this 80-minute masterpiece; this 13-time major champion regained the authoritative groundstokes and first-rate footwork he’ll need in his next match. Andy Roddick is likely to serve, defend and compete in ways that Juan Martin Del Potro has not yet discovered, but if Roger Federer maintains the form he displayed Tuesday night, it’s safe to say that Roddick’s best will still fall short.

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