Miami – SF

Impressive streak of Novak Djokovic [2] continues. Nothing can interrupt his astonishing concentration, today his semifinal against Mardy Fish [15] was halted after the first four games due to rain  for almost an hour. After the break, Djokovic was even more solid from the baseline than at the beginning of the match and has notched 25th straight victory! Actually the match was a bit more equal than the scoreline was (6-3, 6-1) – Fish had break points in four different games. It was Djokovic’s first match this week in day session, he hasn’t been forced to play at ‘5:5’ in a set in his last 12 sets (starting with the 2nd set of the Indian Wells final), hasn’t been broken yet in Miami (faced 15 break points)!
Roger Federer [3] is good enough to beat many best players in the world, most of them pretty convincingly, but he doesn’t seem to be able to compete anymore with the two best players: Djokovic and Nadal. The Swiss after three painful defeats to Djokovic in three consecutive tournaments, this time suffered a loss to Rafael Nadal [1], in their 23rd mutual confrontation. Federer showed a moment of old magic when after a long rally from the back of the court, played a moon-lob and moment later passed the Spaniard with a cross-court forehand, he got a standing ovation and loud encouragement “Roger! Roger!” from the stands (the 14,638-person crowd), but he had to wait for it a set and a half (*0:3, ‘deuce’ in the 2nd set). Nadal won 6-3, 6-2 in their first non-final match since 2007. After almost identical scoreline (6-3, 6-3) he beat Federer in their first encounter, seven years ago, also in Miami on the same centre court (different color of the court then). Federer: “I had a few mini chances, which against Rafa I was down right away. From then it was an uphill battle. When I did have chances I played poorly and he came up with some good stuff. Off night for me, unfortunately.”