Archive: tennis
The relative disaster that was round-robin play at the World Tour Finals has given way to a pair of intriguing semifinal matches; ones that could end a disturbing trend of blowouts and inject life into London's O2 Arena. Saturday's proceedings will begin with Novak Djokovic going up against Kei Nishikori before the nightcap features an all-Swiss showdown between Roger Federer and Stan Wawrinka.
At last we are at the business end of the tournament, and hopefully we will have a semi-final line-up that will do the season-ending finale with eight of the best male players of the year justice. First up we have the unstoppable Novak Djokovic who not only beat Tomas Berdych every bit as handily as he has been doing all week, but wrapped up the year-ending No. 1.
The drama has been taken out of just about every singles match right from the start so far this week in London. Novak Djokovic did the same to the battle for the year-end No. 1 ranking.
David Ferrer put in the hard yards for four days at the World Tour Finals. Every day, he fulfilled the requirements of an alternate by being on site prior to each singles match--two on Sunday, two on Monday, two on Tuesday, and another two on Wednesday. That's what an alternate has to do in case one--or both--of the scheduled participants suddenly pulls out.
Roger Federer has produced one masterclass after another at the World Tour Finals. Even with his opponents arguably becoming increasingly more difficult by the match, nothing has changed. Following successive straight-set wins over Milos Raonic and Kei Nishikori, the 33-year-old demolished Andy Murray 6-0, 6-1 in just 56 minutes on Thursday night.
Round-robin action will conclude and the semifinal matchups will be set by the time play at the World Tour Finals ends on Friday. Group A is wrapping up with Novak Djokovic vs. Tomas Berdych and Stan Wawrinka vs. Marin Cilic. Djokovic is already almost guaranteed to advance, while Cilic is likely on the way out of London regardless of his third singles result.
If you can forgive us a moment to revel in the first three-set match when super-sub David Ferrer stepped in for an injured Milos Raonic to give Kei Nishikori a workout, we arrive at the last of the round robins, as the Group A boys being what feels like the first week of a Grand Slam to a close.
It started so promisingly, as Stan Wawrinka started with the same confident free-swinging style as he had against Tomas Berdych in the first round robin match. Surely a mate against the two winners of the first matches would yield our most competitive match to date.
Singles match after singles match at the World Tour Finals has been a straight-set beatdown. Any one involving Novak Djokovic is not a particularly good candidate to end the trend. The top-ranked player in the world is simply playing too well overall, too well at this particular event, and too well indoors.
If the London faithful got to choose, both Roger Federer and Andy Murray would be a part of Saturday's semifinals. And that still is a possibility even though the two fan favorites have to face each other on Thursday night at the World Tour Finals. Federer will already be through even before he takes the court if Kei Nishikori fails to beat Milos Raonic in straight sets.
Earlier in the week an Italian journalist went on a routine of asking all the players which one of the other players they’d most like to have dinner with and what question they’d ask that player. Four — Nishikori, Cilic, Raonic, and Wawrinka — chose Roger Federer, for differing reasons.
Roger Federer may be the oldest participant at the World Tour Finals, but he sure is not looking like it. Or maybe he is, and age--plus experience--is an advantage. Kei Nishikori sure knows it's not a disadvantage after going down to Federer 6-3, 6-2 in just one hour and nine minutes on Tuesday afternoon.
Four players lost their first match at the World Tour Finals. That always has been the case and always will be--barring a change in format. And every time they still have a chance to progress in the tournament and even win it. Such is the situation for Andy Murray, Milos Raonic, Tomas Berdych, and Marin Cilic.
Now we have had the first rounds, it will be time to get the calculators out, take shoes and socks off to work out all the possible permutations as the two winners and the two losers of the first two matches (still with me?) get to grips in round two.
Tomas Berdych's self-admitted worst performance of 2014 coincided with Stan Wawrinka's best match of this fall swing. The result was a 6-1, 6-1 blowout in the Swiss' favor that lasted a mere 58 minutes. Wawrinka is now 1-0 in round-robin competition at the World Tour Finals, while Berdych is 0-1 and likely to be in a serious tiebreaker deficit having won only two games.
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