Shanghai – SF

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.