ATP Rogers Cup Semifinals Day Analysis

With semifinal day in the books in Toronto, here is how Kei Nishikori and Novak Djokovic punched their ticket to the final match. 

Semifinal #1:

Despite being seeded third in this years Rogers Cup main draw, just behind Novak Djokovic and Stan Wawrinka, the Japanese number one and the sixth best overall player in the world wasn’t a favorite of many, including yours truly to make it to the semifinals, let alone the final.

The 26-year-old is having a great season. His overall win-loss record (36-11), which includes 10-3 and 14-4 records at the grand slams and Masters 1000 events respectively, speaks for itself.

In addition, his record on hard courts is impressive, which includes a 19-6 match win loss record on that surface this year, and 189-89 for his career. Nine of his eleven career singles titles have come on the hard surface, whether that is indoors or outdoors, including four in a row in Memphis from 2013 to this year.

Hard courts tend to favor fast players that love to be on the baseline, win points on long rallies, and a big serve tends to help. Nishikori fits that description to a tee: he is one of the fastest players on Tour, and he loves to play at the baseline.

Despite all of this, questions about his health that have defined his career have come back in 2016. Nishikori retired from his first round match against eventual champion Florian Myer in Halle, and he retired in the second round at Wimbledon with a calf injury.

It is hard to pick him to go all the way to the final in a tournament of this magnitude, and on a surface that demands so much physically and mentally.

Nishikori proved all of the doubters wrong with a 7-6 (6), 6-1 victory over the second seeded Wawrinka to reach his first career Rogers Cup finale and his third career Masters 1000 final.

This will be Kei’s second Masters 1000 final of the season (he was runner-up to Djokovic in Miami), and his 19th overall appearance in a ATP Tour level final.

This match shouldn’t have been decided in straight sets, but Nishikori was at his best today with the pressure squarely on him.

Wawrinka had numerous chances to win the opening set. He was in command early leading three games to one after several unforced errors from Nishikori on serve in game four led to a break point.

With the Swiss world number five leading five games to two, Nishikori fought back with his return play, earning break point chances in the next four consecutive Wawrinka service games.

Serving for the set at five games to three, Wawrinka made an error allowing Nishikori to break back. Wawrinka had two set points at six games to five and two more in the tiebreak, but the final point he needed alluded him each time.

Nishikori went on to win 11 of the final 13 games. In total, Wawrinka made 37 unforced errors and that resulted in just his second loss in five career meetings head to head. This was a pretty big win for Nishikori as it halted a 16 match losing streak against top five players.

Semifinal #2

The nightcap between Frenchman Gael Monfils and Novak Djokovic was supposed to be a hard fought battle between two players in great form.

Instead, this match provided more evidence of why Djokovic is the world number one, and one of the best to ever play the sport.

Most players, especially at this level, don’t win matches let alone in straight sets, by making six double faults to one ace, but that is exactly what Djokovic managed to accomplish. The Serb only won 69% of his total service points, while getting his first serve in play just 65% time.

Known as the game’s most dominant returner especially on first serves, he won just 30% of his return points in that situation. So how did he achieve what turned out to be a dominating victory?

The answer is simple: he won points when it mattered most. He neutralized a bad serving day by saving break point 86 percent of the time, and when he had the opportunity to break Monfils serve, Djokovic took full advantage converting 80 percent of those chances.

Monfils had an opportunity to take an early two up advantage, but could only manage to hold his own service game. A double fault gave Monfils the lead at two games to one in the opening set, but Djokovic was dialed in from there breezing to a 74 minute 6-3, 6-2 win, improving his record against Monfils to 12-0.

In the end, the long rallies drained Monfils energy, taking his creative shot making out of play, and it was obvious that a lot of the errors the Citi Open champion made were a direct result of how hard he had to work in the first forty plus minutes of the match.

Monfils didn’t do a great job changing up his shot selection to keep his opponent off balance, and that allowed Djokovic to put his amazing baseline game on full display.

Tomorrow’s final should be an intriguing way to end the 2016 version of the Canadian Masters.

Predictions for tomorrow’s ATP and WTA singles finals can be found by clicking here.

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