The History of Men's Tennis (Open Era)

(2)Andy Murray d. (3)David Ferrer               7-5, 6-4        [1:45 h]

Ferrer in his fourth big final, for the fourth time couldn’t even win a set. He led 5:4 in the 1st set, but Murray held his serve to ’15’ and broke in the following game winning four points in a row from 0/30 (four consecutive errors by ‘Pics’). In the 2nd set Murray early on established his supremacy (breaks in the first three games) and finished the match from 15/30 with two service winners and forehand winner on the line directly after a good 1st serve. “It’s been one of the best runs of my life,” said Murray. “I’ve played very, very well the last few weeks. I was very nervous today because I wanted to win here and defend my title. I’m very happy to come through. Ferrer’s one of the toughest players on the tour and one of the best people; it’s a pleasure to share the court with him. I love playing here; it’s one of my favourite places to play.” Stats of the final
It’s a new peak for him – for the first time in career he has won three tournaments in a row, it means the longest winning streak (15; 19 including doubles) and advances to No. 3 in the world. Admittedly he was No. 2 once, but never finished a season higher than No. 4; with his current form a new highest ranking at the end of the year is very probable, especially that Federer rests and his amazing performance in his last three events (Basel, Paris, London) is doubtful. Murray has now won 21 titles, and repeated his feat from the previous three seasons, collecting two ‘Masters 1000’ shields within a year #. I hope to see the Djokovic-Murray clash in Paris or London – that match would be an answer to a question “Is Murray good enough to dethrone Djokovic next year?”.

Doubles final:
(2)M.Mirnyi/D.Nestor d. (3)M.Llodra/N.Zimonjic 3-6, 6-1, [12-10] – 2 m.p.

# Murray’s ‘Masters 1000’ triumphs year by year:

2008 – Cincinnati, Madrid
2009 – Miami, Montreal
2010 – Toronto, Shanghai
2011 – Cincinnati, Shanghai

Two days in a row, David Ferrer prevailed almost identical battles against big-servers. Just like yesterday against Andy Roddick, lost the 1st set against Feliciano Lopez today, despite an advantage in a crucial stage of a tie-break (yesterday 5:3*, today 5:4* – Lopez played awesome backhand passing-shot then). Both Roddick and Lopez, couldn’t take the momentum after the tie-breaks against the rock-solid “Pics”, who was outplaying them from the baseline throughout, he wasn’t broken once in those matches (6-7, 6-2, 7-6 over Roddick, 6-7, 6-3, 6-3 over Lopez), and what is more interesting, he was an equal opponent in the service department (11-11 in aces vs. Roddick, 11-12 vs. Lopez). “I know the record with him, but I tried to refocus on my game,” Ferrer said about his 1-6 record on hard-courts against the left-handed compatriot, “I had confidence with me, with my game. When I lost the first set, I tried to forget the tiebreak and I tried to focus again. I played better in the second and the third.” Ferrer will play his fourth big final tomorrow (he has lost two ‘Masters 1000’ finals to Nadal, and ‘Masters’ final to Federer, it happened also in Shanghai, four years ago).
In the second semifinal – as expected – Andy Murray dismissed Kei Nishikori 6-3, 6-0 in just 56 minutes, winning the last eight games. The Scot has won 24 of his last 25 matches since mid-August, with the only loss coming to Rafael Nadal in the semifinals of the US Open; there’s no doubt it’s the best season in career of the 24-year-old player from Dunblane.

At the age of 30, Feliciano Lopez [28] has a chance for the biggest achievement in his professional life. The Spaniard repeated his best ‘Masters’ performance in Shanghai, but this time managed to do this in impressive style – faced only 1 break point in the last two matches (Berdych, F.Mayer). Two years ago, Lopez retired against Nadal in the Shanghai semi-final at very uncomfortable scoreline (1-6, 0-3), this time he’ll play against the other Spaniard – David Ferrer, with whom leads 6-4 in their H2H. If Lopez wins this match, he will finish the season for the first time in the Top 20 #. The crowd favorite, Kei Nishikori [47] after three tight wins, without serious troubles defeated Alexandr Dolgopolov 6-4, 6-3 – both guys fought for their first ‘Masters’ semi-final. “I feel like home here,” said Nishikori, “It means a lot to play semis here. I’m really excited now. I think I started well today. I knew he [was] going to hit a lot of slice and I have to be careful. I was trying to not go for too much, just try to [be] steady on the court, and that worked.” 21-year-old Nishikori will be the first Japanese to enter the Top 40 next week (the best player from Japan in the Open era – Shuzo Matsuoka – reached career-high No. 46 in 1992).

# Lopez’s ranking in the last 10 years: 2001 – 159; 2002 – 62; 2003 – 28, 2004 – 25; 2005 – 33; 2006 – 79; 2007 – 35; 2008 – 30; 2009 – 47; 2010 – 32.

Juan Carlos Ferrero, who is mentioned on my blog in the “Match points” page as the biggest active specialist of winning matches from a match point down, lost today a third round encounter, squandering four match points (the most in his career #). He was four times one point away from beating his compatriot David Ferrer on return at 5:4 in the 2nd set. Ferrer has improved their H2H to 7-2 (three “tight” wins). “Pics” with this win has already qualified for ATP Tour World Finals in London for the third time.
Gilles Simon didn’t increase his chances to qualify for London as he was surprisingly beaten by Matthew Ebden 2-6, 6-2, 6-7(8). The Australian needed five match points in the final set tie-break to clinch the biggest victory of his life. It’s astonishing achievement for Ebden, who hasn’t even won a Challenger (the only final: Kyoto ’10). Florian Mayer [23] upset Rafael Nadal 7-6(5), 6-3 in 1 hour 47 minutes, notching the biggest scalp of his tennis life, it was their first meeting at the ATP Tour level. The German converted his first match point with a backhand passing-shot and caught his head in disbelief. He had never before defeated a player of this caliber (H2H’s: 0-1 Agassi & Djokovic, 0-3 Federer). “It’s a really nice feeling,” said Mayer. “He’s such a great competitor on court. For sure it is the biggest win in my career. I cannot actually believe it right now. But the tournament goes on tomorrow so I have to stay focused for the rest of the week“.

# Ferrero’s defeats after wasting a match point:

Estoril 2002, 2R: D.Nalbandian 6-4, 4-6, 6-7(4) – 3 m.p.
Sydney 2003, F: H.T.Lee 6-4, 6-7(6), 6-7(4) – 1 m.p.
Dubai 2005, 2R: R.Federer 6-4, 3-6, 6-7(6) – 2 m.p.
Palermo 2005, QF: T.Behrend 7-6(2), 6-7(4), 5-7 – 3 m.p.
Vienna 2006, 1R: J.Melzer 7-5, 6-7(5), 3-6 – 1 m.p.
Shanghai 2011, 3R: D.Ferrer 6-1, 5-7, 2-6 – 4 m.p.

To be honest, nothing particularly interested happened in the second round. The top two seeded players move through to the next round quickly, Nadal dropped only five games against Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, Murray received a walkover from Dmitry Tursunov. Santiago Giraldo known for his choking abilities prevailed in a 3rd set tie-break against 3rd-set-TB specialist Jurgen Melzer. Giraldo was two points away from defeat when his backhand return clipped the line. In the following point he passed the Austrian (4-6, 6-4, 7-6) to advance to the 3rd round of a Masters ‘1000’ for the second time in career (previously he did it in Rome 2010). Earlier on, Giraldo held his serve at 1:3 in the 2nd set after 7 deuces. In a battle of qualifiers Matthew Ebden [124] stunned Ryan Harrison 6-4, 6-2. It’s the biggest success for the 24-year-old Australian. Nenad Zimonjic notched his 500th win in doubles, the Serb along with Llodra defeated the Italian duo Bolelli & Fognini.

Two out of three biggest stars of the tour, Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer pulled out of the competition this week. Djokovic due to injury, Federer is tired and looks forward to finish the season well (it means on the 3rd position ahead of Murray) playing in Basel, Paris & London. Other notable guys who withdrew: Soderling, Monfils, Del Potro & Gasquet.
I’m not a lover of this tournament. The draw is weaker only in Monte Carlo, the atmosphere is far from exciting, stands are rather empty, spectators temperated in showing emotions. Robin Haase has automatically qualified as the biggest choker of the week. The Dutchman led 6-0, *4:1 (30-15) against Kei Nishikori. At 5:4 he had a match point on serve and led 5:3* (30-15) in the 3rd set. Nishokori won 0-6, 7-5, 7-6. Also a third set tie-break was required in a duel between Milos Raonic and Michael Llodra, although Raonic led 5:2* (deuce) in the 3rd set. Raonic has a perfect record in the 3rd set tie-break matches: 5-0 (all matches this year).