Semifinals in place: By an unexpected route, yesterday’s two quarterfinals netting the predicted results. Roger Federer played three lopsided games before Gilles Simon retired with a shoulder injury. Rafael Nadal had to work much harder.
Tomas Berdych pushed Nadal to three sets –undoubtedly the best the Czech has played this week, and the first time he has won a set against Nadal for years. Berdych’s consistency with the serve has been something of an achilles heel of late, and he failed to land more than 55% of first serves during the match. He was more successful on first serve points than Nadal was, but he just didn’t get enough of them.
Semifinal #1: At 1:00 EST today, Novak Djokovic takes on Mardy Fish. The sportsbooks see this one as a foregone conclusion, giving Djokovic a 90% chance of winning. My system is more conservative, setting the probability at about 80%. That said, the oddsmakers have been more aggressive on almost all of Djokovic’s matches over the last few weeks, and that has worked out quite nicely for them.
Fish has been a bit of an enigma to me this week. There’s no doubting that he has scored two big wins, over Juan Martin del Potro and David Ferrer. But I wasn’t convinced in either match that his opponent was playing his best; Fish didn’t beat the del Potro who went deep in Indian Wells, and the Ferrer of Wednesday’s second set didn’t look like a top 10 player at all.
Fish’s forehand is still a weak spot, and both Ferrer and del Potro let him get away with half-hearted defense. Maybe I’m not giving the American enough credit–perhaps it was his game that made his last two opponents look sub-standard. Constant net-rushing can have that effect. But I doubt it will have any such effect on Djokovic.
Semifinal #2: Then, at 7:00 EST, it’s Nadal and Federer. Thanks to yesterday’s match, Nadal has worked harder to get here, but I don’t think that falls in Federer’s favor. The Swiss has had a few easy matches, notably a 6-3 6-1 drubbing of Olivier Rochus. Yet he hasn’t demonstrated that the holes in his game–namely, consistency from the baseline–have been remedied.
Oddsmakers set this match at about 57/43 in favor of Nadal; my system gives Federer the edge at 55/45. Their last two hard-court matchups–at last year’s finals, and at the 2009 Australian–have gone the distance. I expect that this one will be decided in three sets as well.
Barranquilla: The most interesting challenger to this point is the tournament in Barranquilla, which I mentioned earlier in the week because Wayne Odesnik was in the draw. The Odesnik storyline ended quickly, but that’s not all on offer. As I noted yesterday, the tournament didn’t hand any of its wild cards to Colombians, and after two rounds, all of the local boys are gone. That’s a disappointment, as Alejandro Falla was seeded fourth, and Robert Farah had a third-set tiebreak against Flavio Cipolla.
Instead, the event has been dominated by Argentines, five of whom are in the quarterfinals. Notable among them is Martin Vassallo Arguello, a former top 50 player who had to qualify. He beat top-seed Teymuraz Gabashvili in straight sets yesterday, and now he will face Cipolla in an attempt for his sixth-consecutive match win.
See you tomorrow!