The Cinderella story would have had aging Tommy Haas, frequently injured, getting some of his just due by beating world number 4, David Ferrer.  Avid tennis fans will tell you that David Ferrer squeezes every bit of talent out of his diminutive body.  Fans respect David Ferrer, but when push comes to shove, fans seem willing to put Ferrer on the losing end of a battle.  They forget he had numerous wins over hard-hitting del Potro back in 2012, that he often split matches with the hard-hitting Robin Soderling (where is he?) back in the day.  Ferrer knows how to deal with power unless it’s of the highest quality.

So, there were some that felt Tommy Haas could upset David Ferrer.  I felt otherwise.  I thought, for example, Nishikori would push Ferrer even though historically Ferrer tends to have Nishikori’s number.  So, unless I had good evidence otherwise, I felt that the buck stopped with Ferrer.

Even so, Haas did win the first set, 6-4, but Ferrer turned it around, 6-2.  There were exchanges of breaks and Haas had chances, but the resilient Ferrer came back as he seems to do to close out the third set, 6-3.

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Andy Murray’s the highest seed remaining, and he was scheduled to face Richard Gasquet.  Gasquet’s been historically tough for Murray.  Murray has won all meetings in Slams.  Gasquet has won all meetings in Masters 1000 events (though most of the meetings are years old).  Gasquet upset Berdych in the previous round, his steadiness and Berdych’s error-prone shotmaking helping the Frenchman to the win.

Gasquet has one of the best loop backhand shots in the game, getting that shot up higher than almost anyone else.  Most one-handers prefer to hit flatter on that side.  Now, Gasquet can flatten that shot out and hit bullets on that side, so he can do it all.

The first set was pretty even as Murray generally did better holding serve off his big shots while coughing up errors on Gasquet’s game.  Murray then got a late break in the first set, but as he often does, he gave up the break while serving for the set.  The first set went to a tiebreak where Gasquet got to an early lead and hit some nice shots including a nice pickup half-volley and went on to take the set.

Murray began turning it around in the second set, as he cut down on errors.  At the same time, Gasquet struggled with an ankle or toe issue, but chose, to his credit, not to retire.  He was broken twice, and moved OK throughout, but Murray kept the pressure on, and hit key lobs, to take the second set, 6-1.

Gasquet saw a trainer between the sets, but still seemed to be grimacing in the second set.  Though Murray got out to an early break, Gasquet surprisingly broke back.  But Murray continued to make Gasquet run to his forehand where he was struggling.  Murray secured a break, and then one more, and took the final set, 6-2.

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The final will pit Andy Murray against David Ferrer.  For all of Ferrer’s accomplishments, he had not won a Masters 1000 event until Paris.  While most of the top 8 were trying to conserve energy, and not trying their best to win in Paris (which was put in back=to-back weeks in 2012 to give the top players one more week of rest after the year-end championship), Ferrer had a strong desire to finally get the one title that eluded him: a Masters 1000.  He defeated surprise finalist, Jerzy Janowicz.

Ferrer has won 2 titles this year, and is pretty much as adept playing on hard courts as he does on clay, so here he is, in the finals, taking advantage of the Djokovic upset.

Can Ferrer win?  Certainly, he could.  Murray has enough ups-and-downs in his game that he can be vulnerable to a Ferrer.  Murray will, of course, want to serve well and win free points.  If Murray plays to a high standard, he should win.  Still, expect Ferrer to keep it interesting.