Into the semis and back to #4!

6-2 6-2

Interesting that this year for the final group matches Federer vs Soderling and Nadal vs Berdych have played the afternnoon matches.

They have put on first the players with 2 & 1 win records so far as against these with 1 & 0 wins,  i.e. these are the matches that if they played second in theory could err perhaps "arrange" a result that would see both qualifying dependant on the result of the other match.

Of course they didn't do it this way last year, playing Federer vs Del Potro second.  Not sure if they played Davydenko vs Soderling second as well.

I'm not sure how much I really believe conspiracy theories, but that order certainly is the safer order to negate the chances of anything naughty.

Soderling playing Brisbane in 1st week, Top 4 players are Sod, Roddick, Verdasco and Fish

Duckboy played as though his bags were packed and the taxi to the airport waiting. Maybe he didn't want Fed to get his 21st win over him!

So it is Fed v Djoker.

Andy loves playing Rafa and will certainly raise his game tomorrow...fingers crossed for a win but probably go down in 3...but u never know.

Generally really good match today.  The match was in a way there for Andy in the third set but unfortunately he couldn't quite pull it off.

Andy did generally serve better today, although his first serve % dropped a bit during the match, finishing at 42% for the third set and 52% overall.  But he was going for it on first and quite often second serve as he tends to do against Rafa and the 22 ace / 6 DF was a good return, just a pity he couldn't have kept that first serve % up in the final set and final set tiebreak.  After establishing that early 2 mini break tiebreak lead how welcome would have been some free service points rather than having to rally with the dog of war that is Rafa, particularly when Andy looked just a bit tight himself.

On return, Andy certainly took some time to get to grips with the Rafa serve, particularly the placement of the second serve but really threatened much more in the second half of the match.  He did look ready to take control in the final set if he couild just have got that early break when he had chances.  

Then after the possibly related careless dropitis service game I did think Andy did well to fight to the end like he did and not fade away as he has sometimes done after disappointments.

Andy did achieve three breaks against one and won five more points overall, but I love the tennis scoring system and would not say Andy was unlucky.  You just have to admire the fighter and champion that is Nadal.  It looks as if he may have had his feet up much of the time in the last few weeks judging by how he looked physically late on today but at the end he focussed and fought like the true champion he is.

It was a match that Andy at his absolute best would have won, and while he fought very well and indeed played very well at times just his execution let him down at times.

It is though hopefully an encouraging performance to end his season on, particularly after the Fed defeat on Tuesday.  He has in the second half of the year played very well at times, getting back close to his best when he has had a controlled aggressive game working well.

Now some good hard work needed in the off season since I think he has been playing slight catch-up on endurance all season after his err time off after the Aussie Open.

Just hope that sod Sod doesn't go winning an ATP 250 in the first week of the new year and recapture the no 4 ranking and Aussie no 4 seed position while Andy is on Hopman Cup duty.