For a guy who struggled to win his first tournament title (losing 4 finals before winning his first), Janko Tipsarevic is hitting his stride.  With his win in Kuala Lumpur, Tipsarevic become Serb #2 ahead of Viktor Troicki.  Novak Djokovic credits his success due to the Serbian maiden win in Davis Cup last year, but all the Serbs have risen as Djokovic has.  Viktor Troicki has been in the top 20.  Tipsarevic won 2 titles in the last month.

Tipsarevic played Bogomolov who was born in Russia but is now an American and this match wasn’t that close.  Tipsarevic won easily 62, 61.

Marin Cilic, the number 4 seed, had to face Mikhail Youzhny.  Surprisingly, Youzhny lead their head to head, 5-1, but this time the Croat had the goods and won 63, 64.  He meets Tipsarevic in the finals.  Cilic leads this head-to-head, 5-1.  However, Janko won their latest meeting in Miami.  This could be an interesting match.  Tipsarevic was once asked who his 3 toughest opponents were and one of the top 3 was Cilic who he said moved surprisingly fast for his size.  But did the Miami win and Tipsarevic’s recent streak hint at Tipsarevic turning the tide?  Cilic has played well recently as well, having reached the finals of Beijing.

Vienna

The big guns are over at Vienna.  Jo-Wilfried Tsonga had to come back to win his match against the “X” man, Xavier Malisse, to win his quarterfinals in three sets.  Tsonga had an easier time with big serving Daniel Brands, winning 62, 76.

del Potro needed 3 sets to beat South African, Kevin Anderson, who has been having his best year.  del Potro won 64, 36, 64.

This sets up the final between the top two seeds, Tsonga vs. del Potro.  del Potro leads the head-to-head, 3-0, but they haven’t played since 2009.  This will be an intriguing match since Tsonga is the higher seed, but del Potro is trying to find the form that will hopefully have him in peak shape come Davis Cup in a month’s time.