This wasn’t the tournament that organizers had hoped for.  For the last few years, Andy Roddick has made his way to finals, but this year, Roddick, and all the other Americans lost before the semifinals.  With this loss, Andy Roddick is likely to slip out of the top 10 and leave the top 10 without an American for the first time since the ATP started official rankings back in the early 1970s.

Even the top seed wasn’t immune.  In his first tournament since his Wimbledon final, Tomas Berdych lost to Xavier Malisse in the quarterfinals.  Malisse also beat John Isner, the fifth seed, in the previous round and Julien Benneteau, the 12th seed, the round before.  Malisse, however, had never beaten Baghdatis.  Although the two are considered 0-0 in official ATP play (i.e., in tournaments rated at the ATP 250 level and above), they played twice in 2009 in Challenger finals with Baghdatis winning both in straight sets.

Baghdatis again won in straight sets, winning the first set easily, 6-2, but failing to close out a break at 6-5 and being broken back immediately.  Baghdatis took control of the tiebreak, but Malisse clawed his way back and almost came all the way back when they played a long point at match point and Malisse netted a shot after Baghdatis had hit a sharp angled forehand off a slice down-the-line backhand from Malisse.  Malisse responded with a weak shot which Baghdatis pushed inside out, and Malisse failed to make a good shot off that.

In the other semifinal, Marin Cilic will take on the resurgent David Nalbandian.  Nalbandian had pretty easy wins over Rajeev Ram, Stanislas Wawrinka, and Marco Chiudinelli.  These matches, expected to be somewhat closer, may show that Nalbandian is reaching a form he hasn’t seen in quite some time.  In the quarterfinals, Gilles Simon took the first set 6-3, and broke early in the second set, mostly on shots hit up the middle leading to Nalbandian errors, but somehow the light turned on and Nalbandian was executing well.  Nalbandian took the second set 6-2 and the third set 6-3 to eliminate Simon, who is also seeking to return to the form that brought him to the top 10 back in 2008.

Marin Cilic beat Denis Istomin in the second round rather easily.  He needed more work to beat Mardy Fish who had been playing quite well up to this point, winning in Newport as well as Atlanta.  But Cilic showed that, as a top 10 player, he still had enough to beat Fish.  Cilic then beat Janko Tipsarevic in the quarterfinals.  Tipsy had beaten Querrey in a rematch from Los Angeles.  Although the Serb was unable to close out the match in LA, he was able to beat Querrey in DC.