Szlia
Member
The Nishikori vs Murray match was a strange match, made of many momentum switches seemingly coming out of nowhere and without much tactical sense or reason. I guess it was a question of who at any given moment was managing his game better. For Nishikori, it was about finding the right way to attack. He wanted to be aggressive, but not take too many risks and maybe throw some variations in there to not allow Murray to get in a groove and not miss a ball. For Murray, it was about being consistent, tracking down shots, but doing that without becoming too passive.
At the start of the match Nishikori had his balancing act all wrong, playing every ball on the same tempo and, unable to break Murray's defense, overplaying and making tons of mistakes. End result: 6-1 Murray. That's about the point where Dimitrov against Murray tried to continue doing the same thing hoping for a different result... Well... Dimitrov got slaughtered doing that and there is a reason Nishikori is ranked a lot better than the bulgarian. He adjusted his game (EDIT: To be fair, they also closed the roof, which allowed a break during which Nishikori had a chance to talk with his coaches, a luxury that Dimitrov did not have). He sliced a little more, played some drop shots, tried to finish points at the net and tried to keep being aggressive while playing to safer targets. On the other side of the net, possibly lulled by all the free gift he got from the japanese in the first set, Murray kinda stopped doing much else than putting the ball back in play with just a moderate amount of mustard. Well... Nishikori won that set 6-4.
Ebb and flow, ebb and flow, Murray found an extra gear near the end of the third to bag it 6-4 and was in a good shape to take an early lead in the fourth, as Nishikori kinda lost the plot, but then another momentum switch happened that was both clearly explainable and absolutely impossible to understand. During a rally on break point for Murray, something, somewhere fell, doing a loud metallic noise, so the chair umpire stopped the point with a let (as it also happens when a player has a ball drop off his pocket or when something flies on court during a point) and Murray was pissed off and went to remind the umpire that in a similar situation at the French Open he stopped during a point when there was a loud noise, but lost the point because that very same umpire did not stop play (a stupid argument btw, because all you have to do is play unless the umpire stops the play: if it was up to the players to stop points for outside disturbance there would be no shortage of bullshit). Now, would you believe it, unable to let it go, Murray lost the following seven games. Not points, GAMES. That's some under 13 level of junior bullshit right there. Murray still managed to rope Nishikori back in in the fifth, but at the very end the japanese just found the ressources needed to score his second win in 9 matches against Murray.
Things were a bit clearer in the Del Potro vs Wawrinka match, but also a little strange. Del Potro made the better start, broke early, dominated proceeding, but somewhat against the flow of the game Wawrinka broke back and forced a breaker that he utterly dominated, Del Potro gifting him three points with as many forehand errors. Boosted by the win of the first set, Wawrinka dominated proceedings in the second... until he played a shocker of a service game, found himself a break down and was unable to recover it... (a rare occasion where the player who made the most winners and the least unforced errors still managed to lose the set!).
From then on though the match took a very simple form: 90% of the points were played in the backhand to backhand diagonal. Del Potro playing very conservatively, just sliced or lifted balls cross-court, hoping Wawrinka would a) play down the line and 1) miss 2) allow Del Potro to counter attack with a huge running forehand 3) play a winner or hard to retrieve shot, b) play a bad cross court shot and 1) miss 2) allow Del Potro to run around his backhand and start dictating with his forehand. This situation proved trickier than I thought for Wawrinka, but another component played in his favor: as the match went on and many rallies were played, Del Potro started to feel it physically, while Wawrinka remained rock solid. The patient and resistant swiss won the last three games of the third set and then the first four of the fourth and that's all she wrote.
So we have our semi finals:
DJOKOVIC [1] vs MONFILS [10]
Will this be the first true test of Djokovic fitness level or will Monfils be unable to cope with the moment? Will it be a one sided affair with the world N°1 making light work of a Monfils pinned 3 meters behind his baseline, or will it turn into a 7 hours epic made of 50 shots rallies as no one is able to score a winner against the other and both refuse to make unforced errors?
WAWRINKA [3] vs NISHIKORI [6]
Their head to head is as evenly split as 5 matches can be. And in a draw where just one member of the big four reached the semi finals (I doubt this happened often in the past decade), both will feel it's a big opportunity to reach a final.
At the start of the match Nishikori had his balancing act all wrong, playing every ball on the same tempo and, unable to break Murray's defense, overplaying and making tons of mistakes. End result: 6-1 Murray. That's about the point where Dimitrov against Murray tried to continue doing the same thing hoping for a different result... Well... Dimitrov got slaughtered doing that and there is a reason Nishikori is ranked a lot better than the bulgarian. He adjusted his game (EDIT: To be fair, they also closed the roof, which allowed a break during which Nishikori had a chance to talk with his coaches, a luxury that Dimitrov did not have). He sliced a little more, played some drop shots, tried to finish points at the net and tried to keep being aggressive while playing to safer targets. On the other side of the net, possibly lulled by all the free gift he got from the japanese in the first set, Murray kinda stopped doing much else than putting the ball back in play with just a moderate amount of mustard. Well... Nishikori won that set 6-4.
Ebb and flow, ebb and flow, Murray found an extra gear near the end of the third to bag it 6-4 and was in a good shape to take an early lead in the fourth, as Nishikori kinda lost the plot, but then another momentum switch happened that was both clearly explainable and absolutely impossible to understand. During a rally on break point for Murray, something, somewhere fell, doing a loud metallic noise, so the chair umpire stopped the point with a let (as it also happens when a player has a ball drop off his pocket or when something flies on court during a point) and Murray was pissed off and went to remind the umpire that in a similar situation at the French Open he stopped during a point when there was a loud noise, but lost the point because that very same umpire did not stop play (a stupid argument btw, because all you have to do is play unless the umpire stops the play: if it was up to the players to stop points for outside disturbance there would be no shortage of bullshit). Now, would you believe it, unable to let it go, Murray lost the following seven games. Not points, GAMES. That's some under 13 level of junior bullshit right there. Murray still managed to rope Nishikori back in in the fifth, but at the very end the japanese just found the ressources needed to score his second win in 9 matches against Murray.
Things were a bit clearer in the Del Potro vs Wawrinka match, but also a little strange. Del Potro made the better start, broke early, dominated proceeding, but somewhat against the flow of the game Wawrinka broke back and forced a breaker that he utterly dominated, Del Potro gifting him three points with as many forehand errors. Boosted by the win of the first set, Wawrinka dominated proceedings in the second... until he played a shocker of a service game, found himself a break down and was unable to recover it... (a rare occasion where the player who made the most winners and the least unforced errors still managed to lose the set!).
From then on though the match took a very simple form: 90% of the points were played in the backhand to backhand diagonal. Del Potro playing very conservatively, just sliced or lifted balls cross-court, hoping Wawrinka would a) play down the line and 1) miss 2) allow Del Potro to counter attack with a huge running forehand 3) play a winner or hard to retrieve shot, b) play a bad cross court shot and 1) miss 2) allow Del Potro to run around his backhand and start dictating with his forehand. This situation proved trickier than I thought for Wawrinka, but another component played in his favor: as the match went on and many rallies were played, Del Potro started to feel it physically, while Wawrinka remained rock solid. The patient and resistant swiss won the last three games of the third set and then the first four of the fourth and that's all she wrote.
So we have our semi finals:
DJOKOVIC [1] vs MONFILS [10]
Will this be the first true test of Djokovic fitness level or will Monfils be unable to cope with the moment? Will it be a one sided affair with the world N°1 making light work of a Monfils pinned 3 meters behind his baseline, or will it turn into a 7 hours epic made of 50 shots rallies as no one is able to score a winner against the other and both refuse to make unforced errors?
WAWRINKA [3] vs NISHIKORI [6]
Their head to head is as evenly split as 5 matches can be. And in a draw where just one member of the big four reached the semi finals (I doubt this happened often in the past decade), both will feel it's a big opportunity to reach a final.
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