Today, Group A played.  Djokovic came into finals playing good tennis.  Meanwhile, Tomas Berdych playing the inconsistent tennis that marked his recent years of play.  Much was hoped for when he reached the semis of the French and the finals of Wimbledon, but instead, Berdych backpedalled and went back to losing to whomever, showing the game is as much mental as it is physical.

Djokovic had a fairly easy 6-3, 6-3 win. This was not entirely unexpected.  Indeed, it might have been more surprising if Berdych had made more of a match of it.  Certainly, Berdych is talented enough to play well, but why the change?  Who knows.

It was expected that Roddick would give Rafa more of a challenge.  Rafa generally starts off rusty when he hasn’t played tournaments in a while.  Usually, this is not a problem.  He gets through early round matches against lower ranked players, so mistakes aren’t such a problem because his opponents make even more.

Even so, Roddick hadn’t exactly been playing great tennis due to injuries taking him off the court.  But he had been playing somewhat better.

Roddick decided to do what most folks do against Nadal.  Take cracks at the ball.  It helped that Rafa was rusty and Roddick was able to take the opening set.  By the second set, Rafa was starting to get Roddick in long rallies and his ability to hit aggressive shots from whereever on the court and Roddick’s inability to hit winners was making it rough.  If there’s one huge difference between Djokovic and Roddick, it’s Djokovic’s ability to hit accurately down-the-line on both sides.  Indeed, players who have had the most success can do this.  Roddick can only do this once in a while.  He relies a great bit on his crosscourt shot.  Oh, and his serves.

One reason Roddick kept the second set close was that Nadal was unable to read Roddick’s serve.  If Roddick got a first serve in, Nadal was basically not returning it.  And Roddick generally has a high first-serve percentage.  Roddick’s tactic of coming to net was also not having much effect because Nadal is good at passing.

The second set went to a tiebreak, and Rafa got a lead in the middle and never relinquished.  Then, he got a key break in the middle of the third set, and held on to win it.

Final score: 3-6, 7-6 ,6-4.

Tomorrow, Federer plays Murray in the intrigue match while Soderling plays Ferrer.  Both have played a fair bit this year.  Murray beat Federer the last two times they met (in Shanghai and in Toronto).  However, Federer won the big one (Australia).

Both Murray and Federer came out playing quite well.  Federer’s backhand is looking more solid, starting to resemble how he hit in Australia.  Murray is also looking good.  I’m curious to see what will happen.  I think Murray has the slight edge, but I think Federer could win as well.

Soderling was playing well recently in Paris, but he played Monfils and Llodra in the finals and semis–not exactly the game’s toughest players.  Even so, people were saying how well Soderling was playing and how he would be a threat in London.  He still might be, but Ferrer has had a great year too and has split matches with Soderling.  It’s tough to judge Ferrer’s form too.  So I think it’s a tossup, in which case I lean to the higher seed, namely, Soderling.