Top Four Men Advance to Semifinals at Rogers Cup

Before the tournament began, organizers of the Rogers Cup could only have dreamt of the semifinal matchups taking place on Saturday in Toronto.

 

For the first time in the 129-year history of Rogers Cup, the top four inmen’s tennis all advanced to the semifinals. Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic,Roger Federer and Andy Murray are ranked 1 through 4 respectively in the ATPrankings.

 

“This is a historical weekend for our event,” said Karl Hale, tournament director of the Rogers Cup. “Rafa, Novak, Roger and Andy are phenomenal tennis players and wonderful ambassadors. Having these four former tournament champions advance to the year’s semifinal is a wonderful gift for tennis in Canada.”

 

 

In what was by far the best match of the tournament, Roger Federer pulled out yet another great performance on Friday night when he fought back from being down 5-2 and at match point in the third and final set to defeat 7^th ranked Tomas Berdych in a tiebreaker.

 

Federer looked dominant early taking the first set 6-3 but Berdych found his game in the second set pushing Federer for every point. The second and third sets were the battle of the serves as both players struggled to break the other’s serve. Berdych finally broke Federer in the last game of the second set to even the match, winning it 7-5.

 

Berdych broke Federer twice in the third set and was up 5-2 and a point away from advancing to the semifinals. But with support of crowd Federer finally broke Berdych’s serve two games later, for the first time since the first set, and closed the gap to 5-4. Federer then held serve to tie it at 5-5 and then both players exchanged games to force a tiebreak.

 

With every point the crowd cheered on Federer as he jumped to a 4-0 lead in the tiebreak before Berdych rallied and tied it up at 5-5. Federer took the next point and then after a long rally Berdych hit it long to seal the victory – Federer smacked the ball high in the air and pumped his fist in celebration. The match lasted 2:47 and the crowd leapt to their feet in appreciation and were left buzzing well after the match had ended.

 

The crowds were absolutely amazing,” said Federer who will now meet Djokovic on Saturday evening in one semifinal. “Rarely, you get those kinds of atmospheres, so I knew that was something special. So I’m very thankful, of course.”

 

“When it gets so loud and so exciting, it’s obviously something different. Adrenaline starts going, and you hope you come out, you know, on the better end at the end, and that’s what I was able to do. I’m really, really happy."

 

 

Nadal, meanwhile, needed three sets to get past German Philipp Kohlschreiber. The Spaniard looked to be in trouble early as he lost the first set 6-3. Nadal picked up his game to win the next two sets 6-3 and 6-4 and will now meet Andy Murray of Great Britain on Saturday afternoon in the other semifinal.

 

"I think today I started terrible in the beginning," said Nadal. "Butanyway, always he’s difficult to beat."

 

“It is a good victory for me especially because I finished the match playing better in the third. Sure, being in the semifinals is very good news for me, the very first tournament on hard after one month and a half without competition.”

 

On Friday morning, Murray had little trouble defeating David Nalbandian in straight sets, by an identical score of 6-2, halting the Argentinean’s 11 match win streak.

 

In the late match on Friday, Djokovic barely broke a sweat in defeating Frenchman Jeremy Chardy 6-2 and 6-3. Chardy shocked 6^th ranked Nikolay Davydenko in straight sets on Thursday to reach the quarterfinals but was no match for Djokovic.

 

With the semifinals set and tickets nearly sold out, fans can expect the final weekend of the Rogers Cup to surely produce some great tennis and many memorable moments.