Both men’s semifinals were played today and both were somewhat easier than expected.  Well, OK, most folks probably gave Monaco little chance to beat Andy Murray.  Murray got an early break against Monaco and was threatening a second break.  However, it never came and indeed, Monaco broke Murray to tie the match up, but Murray broke again and won the first set 6-4.  Murray’s defense and speed allowed him to run away with the second set.

In the second match, Federer and Djokovic played even until 5-all when Federer got a break and then served for the set.  Federer opened the second set with a double break, partly due to Djokovic’s numerous errors.  Federer usually makes quite a few errors (24 in this match) and his opponents rarely hit more than he does, but Djokovic had 30 errors.  Djokovic was unable to fend off break points and only saved one break point while Federer saved 4 of 5.

Although Djokovic broke back, he was unable to break a second time.  Federer held both his serves and closed the second set, 6-4.  Federer hasn’t been playing exactly brilliant tennis (though not bad) and has been winning because his opponents (Soderling and Djokovic) have been making more errors than they normally do.

Murray beat Federer the last time they met, which was in the finals of Toronto.  He had lost to Federer the previous three times including the final of this year’s Australian Open.

Murray went into the finals having beaten Nadal and Nalbandian (a guy who was playing pretty good then) using hard hitting tennis and used the same strategy to beat Federer.  Murray hasn’t really tried playing that style as much.  It will be interesting to see how he plans to play Federer.