Shortly after Novak Djokovic’s win over Juan Martin del Potro, a close match that did not end up in a close score, he was asked by the crew of the ESPN tennis team to name 3 other players that had won the Canada/Cincy double.  People have said that it’s hard to win at Roland Garros and Wimbledon, back-to-back, due to the surface change.  Although the surface doesn’t change between these two Masters 1000 event, they are on back-to-back weeks requiring a winner to win ten matches in two weeks, three more than in a Slam (admittedly, in best of 3 scenarios).

Djokovic could only come up with 1 name, Andre Agassi.  The other two, in case you want to know, are Patrick Rafter and Andy Roddick.

Djokovic came into Toronto last week looking to change his fortunes.  He had not reached the gold medal round, courtesy of Andy Murray, then missed out on bronze, courtesy of Juan Martin del Potro.  When del Potro won bronze, it could have been gold given his reaction.  And for the better part of a week, it was the only medal Argentina won before ending up with 4 total medals.

One could forgive the Argentine if he wasn’t really prepared to play Toronto.  del Potro lost to Radek Stepanek in his opening round of play.

One might even forgive Novak Djokovic if he was still in the dumps over not winning a medal.  But there’s one way to cure what ails you, especially with a man of Djokovic’s talents.

Win.

With Federer and Nadal not playing Toronto, and Murray having exited early, Djokovic more or less had the field to himself, and despite the numerous rain delays which caused the tournament to double up matches on Friday, Djokovic defended his title at Toronto,

This week, the Serb came in looking even sharper.  In his match against del Potro, Djokovic just did things better than the Argentine, outlasting him on long rallies, and looking as solid as ever.

This is good, because Roger Federer, despite having a statistically poor serving in the first set, still managed to hold on serve, and take it from Stan Wawrinka, who looked awfully good fending off break points.  Wawrinka continued to have chances to break in the second set, but ultimately, he was the one that got broken, and lost 76 63.

The finals now appears to be all fans could hope for with the best two players playing each other, and in good form. Both men come into the finals without dropping serve.  Federer predicted that one of them would drop serve in the final, although he’s probably hoping that honor goes to Novak.

Regardless of the outcome, Federer should still be the number 1 seed heading into the US Open.  By reaching the finals, Federer will pick up 420 points over his quarterfinal result last year.  Meanwhile, Djokovic, who was a finalist last year, can only pick up 400 points, and that’s only if he wins the title.  Federer already has 75 point lead, so this should stretch his lead out by anywhere between 20 and 400 points.

With Djokovic playing pretty hot, he’ll want to continue heading into the US Open feeling good about himself.  Federer, meanwhile, wants to derail Djokovic’s momentum, but otherwise, is probably less concerned with winning.  However, he finds himself in good form, so it might be worth it for the Swiss to play well.

Still, I lean a little to the Swiss who seems to be playing pretty well (they both are, really).