Wawinka /Nishikori what a slugfest.
Somehow I failed to notice that Martina Hingis is in the doubles tournament this year. Guess what- she and Pennetta just made the finals. They’ll play Makarova and Vesnina, the team that beat the Williamses and Date-Krumm/Zahlavova Strycova. (Serena will get a shot at revenge against Makarova in the semifinals tomorrow.) In men’s singles, Cilic just took out Berdych in straight sets and he will play the winner of Federer-Monfils. The Bryan Brothers reached the finals and will go for their 100th championship as a team against Lopez and Granollers.
Match of the tournament may be playing out here with Federer vs. Monfils.
Federer just tied it up coming back from two sets down and facing two match points.
2 sets all now.
Federer is running away with the fifth! He’s up two breaks at 5-1 with Monfils about to serve to stay in the match.
10 double faults from Monfils. Oof. At the end he was missing serves like it was going out of style. So the semifinals look like this:
Serena Williams (1) vs. Ekaterina Makarova (17)
Shuai Peng vs. Caroline Wozniacki (10)
Novak Djokovic (1) vs. Kei Nishikori (10)
Marin Cilic (14) vs. Roger Federer (2)
Nishikori seems to have cemented himself in that group of future ATP stars along with Raonic and Dimitrov- at least if he can stay healthy. He’ll be 25 at the end of the year and Raonic will be 24; Dimitrov turned 23 in the spring. Cilic seems to have been around forever but he’s going to be 26 at the end of the month, so he’s older than that group but not by a ton. Still this is his first major semifinal since the Australian Open in 2010.
Monfils implodes…again! Well done Roger!
Sania Mirza and Bruno Soares won the mixed doubles, saving (I think) two match points in the deciding tiebreak. The Wozniacki-Peng match just ended on a really hard to watch note, as Peng suffered some severe leg cramps in the middle of a game during the second set and wound up having to retire. She was treated but couldn’t continue. You never want to win like that, although Wozniacki was up a set and a break anyway because Peng was obviously depleted. So Wozniacki, who is all of 24, is back in a major final for the first time in five years. I thought she might be headed for a premature retirement based on the way things were going, but she should be firmly back in the top ten next week. I think Serena will get to the finals and probably steamroll her, but it’s a very surprising and encouraging thing to see her come back like this.
As I tuned in during Serena’s semifinal match, McEnroe was in the middle of saying something along the lines of “It’s a surreal atmosphere here with what happened today, but it’s nice to get focused back on tennis again.”
He gave no further explanation, and googling doesn’t seem to pull anything up. Anyone know what he was talking about?
Peng’s withdrawal. It was pretty painful to watch and she was taken off the court in a wheelchair.
The tournament referee was saying why Peng didn’t get a point plenty for delay of game. It was an injury not conditioning. I think they have to reevaluate the rules at least on the women’s side.
I saw Oozinacki play in Doha , she cramped up and collapsed on the court. Had to withdraw .
Speaking of pain, Serena crushed Marakova. The men’s semis (with Djokovic-Nishikori first) will be tomorrow afternoon, and the women’s doubles final will come after that.
Djokovic getting all he can handle from Nishikori.
Cilic vs Nishikori is not what CBS had in mind for Monday.
I like to see some new faces.
Quick: what’s the last slam final that Novak, Fed, and Nadal all missed?
The last Slam final that didn’t feature any of the Big Four was the 2008 Australian Open, when Djokovic beat Tsonga. For the same reason, that was the last Slam final contested between two men who hadn’t previously won a major. That also means this will be the first year since 2003 with two first-time Slam winners. In 2003 there were three of them: Ferrero, Federer and Roddick. Of course JCF and Roddick never won another.
:dubious:
Djokovic is not part of the Big 4?
:smack: You’re right, of course. I confabulated those two pieces of trivia because Djokovic wasn’t considered part of The Big anything at the time, but he is now. So the answer would be the 2005 Australian Open, where Safin beat Hewitt in the final. It’s the first championship match with two first-time finalists since Australia in 2008.
Big Four? Isn’t it Big Three? Djokovic, Nadal, Federer…who’s the fourth?
Murray
Murray has consistently been the fourth best player and is the only other player even competing for majors, and he deserves a ton of credit for winning two. But in the bigger picture - historically or whatever - it’s hard to put him on the level of the other three guys. He had a blah season and we’ll see how he rebounds next year.