20130811rafaLet’s summarize Montreal so far.  First news, Federer chose to skip this event.  He had added Hamburg and Gstaad to his schedule partly to compensate for losing early at Wimbledon, and partly to give himself time to get accustomed to his new, larger racquet.  Andy Murray lost early.  In a way, no surprise.  In 2009 and 2010, Murray lost early at the US Open to Cilic in 2009 and to Wawrinka in 2010.  He blamed putting too much effort in the Canadian event and Cincy leaving him weary by the time the US Open came around.  Last year, he lost early in both events, but ended up winning the US Open.

The event formerly known as the Canadian Open also finally features Canadians!  For years, Canada could not produce quality tennis players.  The last well-known Canadian was Greg Rusedski who decided to switch his allegiance to Great Britain, presumably for greater money and visibility, despite Great Britain having no good players in that era.

Vasek Pospisil made it all the way to the semis, upsetting Isner, Stepanek, and Berdych.  Meanwhile, Milos Raonic has been struggling.  Although he reached the semis of Barcelona and reached the third round of the French Open, he lost in the opening round of Halle and Eastbourne, lost in the second round of Wimbledon.  He also lost in his second match at Washington DC.  Many were wondering whether the new Canadian hope had reached an impasse in his career.

Apparently, he just needed a few matches on home soil to perk him up.  He beat Chardy, Youzhny, del Potro, Gulbis to reach the semis.  The del Potro match had a bit of controversy as Raonic ran into the net trying to retrieve a short shot.  The umpire failed to notice, and Raonic didn’t volunteer the information.  Normally, touching the net is loss of point, but good tennis sportsmanship calls for a player to make a call on himself.  del Potro was not happy that Raonic chose not to do “the right thing”.

Pospisil hasn’t exactly arrived from nowhere.  He reached the second round of Wimbledon where he pushed Youzhny to 5 sets, and was even up a break in the fifth set, before Youzhny broke twice to claim the match.  Had he made it to third round, it might have made news.  At 6’4″, Pospisil is a tall guy much like Raonic, with a decent serve.  He’s been working with Frederic Fontang on developing a more aggressive game, trying to end points quicker using power.  This has started to pay off in 2013 after his recovery from mono at the start of the year (which forced him to skip the Australian Open).

The semi was a bit sketchy for both players as nerves played a big role.  Raonic won a close first set, Pospisil took the second quite comfortably, and the third went to a tiebreak which Raonic won comfortably.

The big match, of course, was the other semi.  Djokovic and Nadal were playing their first tournament since Wimbledon.  They hadn’t played each other since the French semi where Nadal was pushed to a fifth set for the second time in his career.  The match swung after Djokovic complained that the clay was too dry and wanted it watered down, but was refused.

Heading into the finals, Nadal had yet to drop a set.  Jerzy Janowicz provided him his toughest match.  Meanwhile, Djokovic struggled some with Denis Istomin needing 3 sets to dispatch the Uzbek.  Djokovic beat Gasquet rather comfortably in the quarterfinals.

Djokovic started the semi rather shaky with double faults leading to a break of serve.  Although he pushed Nadal to break points, Nadal was able to fend them off and hold.  Djokovic was broken a second time.  Much of the issues stemmed from either poor serving or badly timed forehands.  Djokovic began finding the range on his shots, and got one break back, but eventually lost the set.

Nadal, for his part, apparently beefed up his serve, and was hitting serves in the 120s, which is faster than he normally hits.  He wanted to play more aggressive tennis and attack the Djokovic forehand,  Historically, Nadal has favored attacking the Djokovic backhand which is his steadier side.

In the second set, Djokovic managed to break Nadal due to aggressive playing on his end.  Neither player seemed to want to play long drawn out 30-shot rallies which were common in their battles throughout 2011 as well as the Australian Open final in 2012.   There was a kerfuffle in the set when the scoreboard shown to the audience had the wrong score and wasn’t fixed for some time.  Chair umpire Gerry Armstrong failed to tell the audience the correct score, and only told the players he didn’t control the scoreboard.

The third set was on serve throughout, and went to a tiebreak.  It was never quite clear who would get ahead or not.  However, when Djokovic lost both points on his serve and was down 3-0, things didn’t look that good.  Djokovic would be down 6-0, before winning 2 points, then missing his next shot to give the tiebreak and the match to Nadal.

Nadal is the heavy favorite against Raonic.  Raonic will have to hope his serve is humming, and tiebreaks spell the difference or that he’s fatigued from the long match.