He may be the old man of tennis but Roger Federer is sending out a warning to his young rivals ahead of this month’s Australian Open.

The Swiss great breezed into Sunday’s final of the Brisbane International, demolishing fourth seed Grigor Dimitrov inside an hour in a 6-2 6-2 win on Pat Rafter Arena.

After taking just 41 minutes to beat Australia’s James Duckworth in Friday’s quarter-final, Federer provided a similar demolition against world No.11 Dimitrov on Saturday, taking just 53 minutes to beat the young Bulgarian.

Only unheralded world No.153 John Millman has taken a set off the 17-time grand slam champion so far in the tournament.

Since that 6-4 reverse in his opening set of the tournament, the 33-year-old has been imperious on his charge to the final.

The world No.2 will now face Canada’s Milos Raonic in the decider as he aims to add the Brisbane crown to his list of ATP Tour titles.

Saturday’s win was Federer’s 999th in his ATP Tour career and he’ll be favourite to claim his 1000th career win on Sunday given he holds a 7-1 career record over Raonic.

World No.8 Raonic had a much tougher path into the final, overcoming Japan’s Kei Nishikori in a three-set epic that went for two and a half hours and didn’t feature a single break of serve.

The towering third seed sent down a whopping 34 aces to take his tally to 66 for the tournament in just three matches as he emerged with a 6-7 (4-7) 7-6 (7-4) 7-6 (7-4) victory.

Nishikori, who didn’t drop a game on his serve in the whole tournament, was eliminated for the third time in three years at the semi-finals in Brisbane.