Tournament organizers must have been thrilled when the top four seeds made the semifinals. Although Murray recently ascended to number 2 in the world, this wasn’t reflected soon enough for the seedings in Cincinnati. Murray was still seeded 3. Had he been seeded 2, Murray could only have met Federer in the final.
The semifinal matchups provided a bit of intrigue. Although Federer regained number 1 after his victory at Wimbledon, there were those who felt that he wasn’t worthy of GOAT (greatest of all times) status. How could Federer be the best ever if he had losing records to his top rivals, people asked? In particular, Andy Murray had a 6-2 record over Federer including the last four matches, all on hard courts.
Federer is not one lacking for confidence. Despite Murray’s mastery over the Swiss number 1, Federer has always believed that he controlled the outcome of the matches. If he played well, Murray couldn’t stop him. The record says otherwise, but nevertheless, each of the last four matches went three sets, partly backing Roger’s claims. Federer could always point to the record that matters most to him: head-to-head in Slams, and there, Roger has a 1-0 lead, his US Open title in 2008 which he won in straight sets.
When Roger took time off to retool his game, he spent a great deal of time working on his serve. This was surprising because the one reliable part of his game was his serve. It was his groundstrokes that were giving him issues, frequently shanking balls, and throwing errors in bunches, that everyone thought he should be spending time on. However, Federer understood it’s much easier to win matches if they can’t break your serve.
Roger started this match playing blistering tennis, mixing his slices with his laser-like forehand. Although Roger didn’t have a high serving percentage against Murray (56%), when he did get it in, he won 90% of all points. Murray seemed to have trouble dealing with Roger’s second serve and never had a break point chance. Meanwhile, Roger broke Murray twice, often attacking the Murray second serve, coming to net, and putting pressure on his rival.
Murray generally doesn’t get blown out two sets in a row, provided the weather isn’t a windstorm. Sure enough, he tightened up in the second set, holding his serve and getting the match to a tiebreak. Although Murray was keeping it close, it still felt like Roger was in control. Roger finally sealed the deal when Andy Murray did something that Roger did last week. Double-fault on match point.
Novak Djokovic is tennis’s forgotten man. Although he’s had a pretty successful year, it hasn’t been in the Slams where it matters. He retired against Roddick at the Australian. He lost to Philipp Kohlschreiber at the French in the 3rd round, perhaps the result of a tough match against Nadal in Madrid that perhaps took a toll on both these men. At Wimbledon, Djokovic lost to Tommy Haas who had beaten him in Halle as well.
Nadal, by contrast, with low expectations set by his team, was looking pretty good, beating Paul-Henri Mathieu and Tomas Berdych. Still, Mathieu and Berdych are not at the level of Djokovic, who can force Nadal to hit a lot of balls, and has great accuracy on his shots. Djokovic is simply at a different level, which is one reason he’s in the top 4.
Hard courts are clearly Djokovic’s favorite surface and one where his game matches up well with Nadal. In particular, Djokovic’s serve allows him to hold his own serve more easily. Although Nadal’s serve has improved, he’s still not back to serving at the level he had earlier in the year, which allowed Djokovic to engage in long rallies with Nadal where he moved him around the court, testing Rafa’s fitness.
In the first set, much like the first set of Murray vs. Federer, Djokovic came out firing and took the first set 6-1, and that was after the match started at 1-all. While most players are trained to engage in crosscourt rallies with Nadal, either to his backhand or to his forehand, Djokovic was willing to move Nadal around by hitting many shots up the line. Indeed, Djokovic may have the best up the line shot in the game. By doing this, Nadal had to run a lot more than he had in previous matches, leading him to rushing some shots. Few players can make Nadal hit as many balls as Djokovic.
Nadal spent some of the match shadowing shots after missing, indicating he’s not particularly happy with the way he’s hitting the ball.
Much like the earlier semifinals, Nadal tightened up in the second set, but not without a great deal of work. Djokovic again had opportunities to break early in the second set, and it took a very competitive Nadal to stave off the break. Djokovic got a break at 2-all, but then seemed a bit nervous trying to get to a 4-2 lead. He gave Nadal a break point up 4-3 on his serve to 30-40 off a tentative rally where he basically pushed the ball and made an error, but then Djokovic played a hyper-aggressive point to get to deuce where he 2-3 amazing shots in a row, pushing the ball from one side to the other with ferocious precision. Djokovic eventually held to 5-3 with a precision pass on ad point.
Nadal held relatively easily to 5-4, and finally Djokovic closed it out at 6-4 in a tight game that went to deuce where he hit only 2 first serves. Nadal went for a big return and missed to give Djokovic an ad, and then Novak hit a good first serve, and hit a hard approach which Nadal netted to give Djokovic a victory that’s he’s wanted for a while.
By playing someone the caliber of Djokovic, Nadal discovered he still needs work to get back to the top. In particular, he didn’t return that well. He’d have Djokovic in trouble, some on second serve opportunities, only to hit them in the net. Djokovic tried something a bit interesting often hitting his groundstrokes inside the service line, but with enough pace that Nadal didn’t couldn’t attack.
Both players today turned around a trend. Federer had lost to Murray four times in a row. Djokovic had lost to Nadal 5 times in a row (including a Davis Cup tie). This leads to a final that no one really expected: Federer vs. Djokovic.
Djokovic has beaten Federer the last two times they’ve met, once on clay (in Rome) and once on hard courts (in Miami). Like Murray, Federer’s last victory over Djokovic was at the US Open.
Federer played his best match so far against Murray. His first serve is going to make it tougher on Djokovic. Djokovic, on the flip side, is a more aggressive groundstroker. Head-to-head, Federer has a pretty big lead over Djokovic, 7-4, however, 4 of the victories occurred prior to Djokovic getting to #3 in the world.
This could be a pretty good hitting match in the final. The final is fairly early at 12:30 and is being covered by CBS.