Morning all. Here's today's gathering-place for your discussions of the semifinals in Monte Carlo, as well as the WTA semis being played in Barcelona and Charleston. As usual we'd appreciate it if you could keep the talk focused on tennis until the day's matches are over - afterwards it's OK to go off-topic.
First up Novak Djokovic will play Stanislas Wawrinka. Djokovic is looking a little more confident on clay than he had been doing on hard courts earlier this year, and although clay may well be Wawrinka's best surface, the momentum in their head-to-head is very much in Djokovic's favour: Djokovic leads 5-2, having won their last four matches. The last two were close, however - the Rome final last year was a three-setter, and in Indian Wells this year the scoreline was 7-6 (7), 7-6 (6) - i.e. the winning margin was just a single mini-break in each set.
In the second semifinal Andy Murray takes on Rafael Nadal. Nadal leads their head-to-head 6-2, including winning their most recent encounter 6-1, 6-2 on a blustery day in Indian Wells, and their only match on clay in straight sets. Naturally he is the clear favourite to win this match. A short time ago I wrote here that if this matchup came to pass there are several obvious areas in which Nadal is superior, most notably his movement, but there's also his unique forehand, of course. Murray's second serve remains one of his vulnerabilities, and Nadal is exceptionally good at punishing the second serve on clay. Meanwhile Murray's first serve, which is becoming a more reliable weapon on hard courts, isn't as imposing on this surface, while Nadal's serve, both first and second, is pretty effective here.
I'm picking Andy Murray as yesterday's player of the day, for having defeated a difficult customer in the shape of Nikolay Davydenko to reach his first-ever semifinal on clay. He gets no awards for comprehending official declarations on line calls, however, following yesterday's dispute with the umpire over a call that was, well....just the way he thought it should be.
There's an interesting situation developing within the rankings here. Currently (ie. taking into account ATP points for this week's tournament, and for simplicity dropping last year's points, though in reality these will remain in place for another week due to the tournament being played earlier this year) Murray stands on 9,050 points and Djokovic on 8,900 points. The new system means that the latter loses points in spite of repeating last year's performance, while Murray has gained points this week. This means that if both players lose today, Murray would be the new world number three a week on Monday. If Djokovic wins today and Murray loses, Djokovic keeps his number three spot. If Murray wins today and Djokovic loses, Murray will have enough points to become world number three this coming Monday. If both men win today, the number three ranking will be decided in the final tomorrow. Yup, it's really that simple...
As always, enjoy today's tennis.
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- Rosangel Valenti*
[Note - as of 10.35 a.m. EST we are moving comments to an Overflow post - see the link below.
Further note - second Overflow post opened at around 12.55 p.m. EST - RV].**
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