Upsets, Resurgences and Semifinal Previews in Cincinnati

Before going into the title-relevant portion of this post, I will make a brief digression to note the ultimate prescience of the "dubious" prediction about last week's Federer-Djokovic referenced in the previous entry, which wound up panning out exactly along the lines I had suggested; I needed only have more faith in the face of the ugly start Djokovic had made at the time of publishing. Anyway, on to more pertinent matters.

In contrast to the neatly-unfolding draw seen last week in Canada (all four top seeds reaching the semifinals for the first time in decades), the Cincinnati event has been a thoroughly unpredictable and turbulent affair thus far. Notably, three of the top four were derailed in the quarterfinals today: a shaky Rafael Nadal fell this evening in a nail-biter against Marcos Baghdatis, the resurgent Cypriot who has been a major player in the US Open Series and had already downed Marin Cilic and Tomas Berdych earlier in the draw, Novak Djokovic suffered his fourth consecutive defeat to Andy Roddick, who, with back-to-back wins over top five opponents within a 24-hour span, has reestablished himself as a top 10 player and factor in the upper echelon of the men's game, and Andy Murray was edged by Mardy Fish, who continues to ride a streak of career-best form which has propelled his ranking from just inside the top 100 to within the top 25 over the course of two-and-a-half months. Only Roger Federer held to seeding, taking out Nikolay Davydenko 6-4, 7-5.

This leaves us with a pair of fascinating semifinal encounters: an all-American clash between Roddick and Fish alongside a rematch of the 2006 Australian Open final between Federer and Baghdatis. Not only are both of these match-ups juicy in their own right, but any of the possible pairings for the final will yield considerable dramatic possibilities as well. So, to offer my thoughts:

Roddick-Fish
Historically, Fish has been a veritable stool pigeon for his good friend and compatriot. Roddick holds a 9-2 career head-to-head advantage, including a win in the final of this very event back in 2003. This, however, is an instance in which I lend less weight than usual to head-to-head history, as Fish is in the midst of an aforementioned career-peak run of play, while Roddick is just coming out of a partially illness-induced down period, which included a loss to the red-hot Fish last month in Atlanta- their last, and perhaps most relevant, meeting. Given Roddick's newfound momentum in the aftermath of back-to-back top five victories, Fish's historical tendency to come up just short in the biggest matches, and the aforementioned head-to-head, I do believe Roddick is properly considered the favorite for tomorrow, but would not encourage anyone to put money down on this match, which I expect to be close and hotly-contested.

Federer-Baghdatis
Here, I must first divulge that Marcos Baghdatis has long had a place among my premier rooting interests on the ATP tour, and that, though I feel no personal dislike and have great respect for Federer, I find no compelling reason to root for a man who has already accomplished more than one could ever reasonably hope for in a tennis career, and am unspeakably tired of watching him crush the hopes and dreams of my personal favorites. Accordingly, I am far from impartial in analyzing this match-up, and admit that it could be wishful thinking which casts it in my mind as competitive. Nevertheless, I will say that I view this encounter, which sees Baghdatis entering on perhaps his best run of play in over four years against a Federer who has struggled all year since the Australian Open, as a virtual toss-up, though I will once again err on the side of history and big-match experience in saying that Federer is deservedly the favorite.

Murray Edges Nadal; Federer Starts Strong

My previously-expressed doubts about Nadal's status as favorite for the Canadian Rogers Masters event proved valid as he was dismissed by a very sharp Andy Murray, 6-3, 6-4, in their semifinal encounter earlier today. The match was closer than the scoreline might lead one to believe, hinging a couple of crucial points in each set, and the outcome may well have been drastically altered by a single errant line call which saved Murray from going down a break midway through the first, but it was nonetheless a comprehensively impressive showing and an uplifting victory for the Scot- good news for his fans, who have had relatively little cause for cheer in recent months. It is hard to imagine Murray not offering at the least a major fight for either Federer or Djokovic in tomorrow's final.

On that note, I had intended to forecast a tough three-set win for Federer in today's second semifinal, but this idea appears highly dubious, to say the least, after seeing the first set, in which Federer blitzed an out-of-sorts Djokovic 6-1 in less a half-hour. As I write this, Djokovic continues to spray errors against a very aggressive Federer and is already down a break in the second set...

Rogers Masters First Big US Open Lead-up Event

Hello, any readers,
Apologies for the nine-day silence, attributable in part to my having set out on vacation Saturday morning to a place with no internet access (I write to you now from a public library in Manzanita, Oregon). In the meantime, the Legg Mason Classic proved a tournament of upsets, well-represented in its surprise final between darkhorses David Nalbandian and Marcos Baghdatis. Tomas Berdych failed to impress, and the likes of Andy Roddick and Marin Cilic continued recent runs of dismal form. All-in-all, no clear frontrunner for the US Open Series and the Open itself has emerged as of yet.

That situation is likely to change this week, however, as we enter our first ATP Masters event of the summer in Canada. These next few days will see the full roll-call of top players reemerge at the same tournament for the first time since Wimbledon and offer the first major preview for the US Open, to be followed later by the Cincinnati Masters and then the Open itself. World's number one Rafael Nadal enters as top seed, though I would hesitate to name him a clear favorite to win the title in light of his relatively unimpressive hardcourt results thus far in 2010, while Roger Federer will be playing his first tournament seeded outside the top two in around seven years.

Early headlines have focused on the novel appearance of a Nadal/Djokovic doubles team, which will be the first such pairing of the world's first and second ranked singles players in over 20 years. The singles draw contains an exciting second-round clash between Robin Soderling and Ernests Gulbis, which is in progress as I write, a chance for Andy Roddick to avenge his latest Wimbledon heartbreaker when he faces Yen-Tsun Lu in his opener, and the potentially electrifying possibility of a Federer-Berdych Wimbledon rematch in the quarterfinals.

I'm off to follow the action now, but hope I can get back to you in the next couple days.
Stay well,
Cody Wendt.

LA Final

In spite of the rather bumpy road each man has had to navigate along the way, our top two seeds, world's number four Andy Murray and rising young American Sam Querrey, are set to square off in the Los Angeles final today. Querrey has looked less than convincing, to say the least, reaching the final through back-to-back nail-biting comeback victories over Arnaud Clement and Janko Tipsarevic, while Murray has been wildly erratic, alternating between patches of awe-inspiring play and lackadaisical ball-spraying. Nevertheless, I am optimistic that both men will summon up their utmost effort to deliver an engaging final this afternoon.

Murray is considerably higher ranked, has a far more impressive collection of victories under his belt, and has soundly defeated Querrey in all four of their previous career encounters, including one scarcely a month ago at Wimbledon. However, it may be pointed out that Murray's results this season outside the Grand Slam events have been positively abysmal by his standards, while Querrey has had tremendous success therein, accumulating three year-to-date titles. Moreover, this match will be played not only in Querrey's home country, but in his home state, where the crowd support he receives is tremendous (as exemplified by the "Samurai" pictured above), and he will enter the match as defending champion.

All things considered, then, I must give Querrey a legitimate chance at pulling the upset, but will lean towards a Murray victory in three sets.