When you play aggressive, like Tsonga or Federer, your success depends on how often you can get your aggressive shots in vs. how often you miss.  Nadal gets to as many balls as anyone in the game, and it allows him not to be terribly aggressive if he doesn’t want to and let the errors come to him.

Tsonga had played very little tennis since France’s loss to Argentina in the Davis Cup (where he won both his singles).  He wanted to come to Monte Carlo fresh, and reaching his first Masters 1000 semi was perhaps reward enough.

Unlike the Dimitrov match where Dimitrov played patient ball and waited for his own errors, Tsonga wanted to play offensive ball.  Against lesser players, this would be a overwhelming tactic even if Tsonga were misfiring.  However, Nadal is a different breed of player.

Soon enough Rafa was up 63 51 on the errant play of Tsonga who was shanking shots or missing volleys or simply getting beat.  Rafa wasn’t even playing that well.  Tsonga began to play with reckless abandon, and shots were starting to go in, so he won the next 4 games in a row to tie it 5-all, en route having to get out of a 0-40 hole to save serve.  Nadal finally won his own serve to lead 6-5, and had chances to break to win, but did not as Tsonga’s aggressiveness was rewarded by a hold.

Finally, it was just too much.  Tsonga made a few too many errors in the tiebreak and Nadal won it 7-3.

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Earlier on in the week, Djokovic was struggling to win his match easily.  He was being pushed to 3 sets.  But with yesterday’s match against Nieminent, Djokovic closed out the match in two close sets.  Compared to Nadal, Djokovic clearly had the easier semi by facing Fognini instead of, say, Berdych or Gasquet.  The two had met back in Indian Wells where he bageled the first set, but somehow lost the second set, 75, before taking the third set easily, 62.

Djokovic wasn’t interested in an intriguing match and played an efficient match to win  62 61.  The audience booed, but Djokovic was off the court in under an hour.

So that sets up the final everyone wanted to see.  The two played in the finals last year, but it was coming off of Djokovic’s grandfather passing away and the emotions surrounding that. Nadal was keenly interested in beating Djokovic because he had lost some 7 matches in a row, including an intense final at the Australian Open.  He beat him here and in Rome and then the French Open final.

There was some concern that Djokovic’s ankle, injured during a Davis Cup match against Sam Querrey, would prevent him from competing.  With his less than stellar play in the early rounds, there was still concern that his ankle might be giving him issues, but with his win over Nieminen and a quick win over Fognini, Djokovic seems like in a good spot to play Nadal.  Nadal doesn’t come into the finals as fresh as he normally he is, so this could be an interesting match for both players.

Right now, if I had to lean one way, I have to say Djokovic is in better shape.  Nadal isn’t playing badly, but he isn’t playing very well either.  He’ll likely raise the level of his play for the finals, but Djokovic also seems confident heading in, so I have to take the player that seems more on his game, and that, to me, is Djokovic.