Cincinnati Masters Series Tennis Updates

Today will be our last look at a few of the top players in mens and women's tennis before the US Open and their last chance to prepare in competition. Of the four playing today none will be in New Haven next week. We'll begin previewing today's matches with the Rogers Cup in Toronto.

Rogers Cup Final: Sharapova vs Dementieva

It's been an interesting week in Toronto with some of the top seeds going out early (Safina, Kuznetsova, Venus) and lots of long draining matches. After today both players should welcome the week off to recover for the Open. Sharapova is going to be pretty tired going into today's match. She was on court really late in her quarterfinal win against Radwanska and had a tough three set match yesterday evening against Kleybanova. It's hard to say how much she will have left for the final but the good news is that she has played some very good tennis this week and is starting to hit the ball a lot better and with a lot more consistency. The match against Kleybanova was a tough physical match with lots of long difficult rallies. The only area of her game that Sharapova should be unhappy with after that match is her second serve. She had a lot of double faults and they were showing up at very poor times. At least the doubles were coming from her going for a lot of the serves and not because she was just trying to spin the ball into play. She may not have the energy left to win this afternoon but is looking good going into the Open.

Dementieva should be the fresher player having beaten Serena in straight sets yesterday afternoon, and having played the afternoon before that rather than the evening session. Her quarterfinal match against Stosur was a tough 3 setter, as was her previous victory against Peer so she won't exactly be well-rested. Against Serena yesterday she wasn't showing any signs of fatigue and wasn't on the court very long in that match. And there were many very short points in the match so she should be ready to go today. Dementieva was hitting the ball well yesterday but Serena was also off her game. It looked like she didn't want to move for the ball and when she got down, started to plant her feet and hit out at returns when she wasn't in good position. She didn't play horrible but gave up a lot of easy points. She'll be more focused for the US Open and will be a threat to win there as always. In today's match Dementieva needs to try to get as many first serves in as possible. Sharapova has the ability to crush Dementieva's second serve and will do it today when given the chance. Today should come down to how well Dementieva can serve, and how much energy Sharapova has left. Sharapova's had a good week but if this wasn't a final I don't think she'd have enough in the tank to come through with the win today. With a chance to win a title she'll put any remaining energy into the match and could pull off the win. Should be a good match.

Cincinnati Masters Final: Federer vs Djokovic

At the start of the tournament we considered Federer's play quality and determination pretty unknown after last week and picked Murray to challenge for the title against Djokovic in the final. One half of the prediction came though with Djokovic making it past Nadal in the semis, but Federer showed us and Murray that he's back and not messing around anymore. And not 'back' as in this year's Wimbledon and French Open, 'back' as in two years ago when the only player who could challenge him on any surface was Nadal on clay. This was pre-mono Federer both physically and mentally. Remember when the quality of Federer's play wasn't determined by how many forehands he's miss, but it was a given that his forehand was going to control play and you judged his match on how many topspin backhand winners he was going to hit? That was the Federer who showed up yesterday. In the semifinal against Murray yesterday Federer completely controlled play from start to finish. Murray picked up his serving in the second set to take it to a tiebreak but Federer came through on every big point, made the serve when he need to, and didn't make errors when he couldn't afford to. Maybe it was just that he's so confident that his best game will beat Murray's every time and wanted to prove it. Whatever it was that motivated him, it worked and Murray never really had a chance. If he plays at this level at the US Open and can keep focus for the full two weeks, no one else is playing well enough to stop him from taking the title.

Federer's opponent today will be Novak Djokovic. When Djokovic plays well he is the only player in the world , with Nadal still not fully back, who may be able to beat Federer on hardcourt when he's at his best. Djokivic hits through the ball very well to keep his opponent pinned back and I think is the best player in the world at changing the direction of the ball from the baseline. He doesn't have any real weaknesses other than sometimes getting thrown off mentally. Once Djokovic gets control of a point there normally isn't much you can do to get back into it and he can take control of a neutral point very quickly by hitting flat down the line on either his forehand or backhand. Novak played a very solid match against Nadal yesterday. Nadal is still a ways off of his top form and actually looked a lot like the Nadal of two years ago who was great at scrambling and retrieving but didn't push players back off the court very well and didn't have the strong serve and attacking game he has developed since then. He looked like the Nadal who didn't match up well against Djokovic on hardcourt because of Novak's ability to push him back into a defensive position and because he didn't have the ability to get out of a defensive position once he was behind in a point against a player who hits as cleanly as Djokovic. This was a similar style match with a similar result to what would have been seen between these two players around 2007.

It's hard to read how much of Nadal's current struggles are physical and how much of it is mental. When he's running and sliding around the court he doesn't seem to have many problems with the knees, but that doesn't mean there isn't still pain that he's masking. Right now a few things are giving him problems. His serve is off, there isn't enough punch on his groundstrokes (lack of depth, spin, power) so he isn't taking control of points and is being pushed back himself, he isn't returning well (last year he would just hit every return back deep to start a neutral point, now he's trying to do too much), and that deadly backhand just isn't finding the angles anymore. All of this could be coming directly from either not being able to generate power with the knees, or not being comfortable doing it. That will take the bite off the serve, reduce his racket speed on groundstrokes which will make him hit shorter because he doesn't have the control to hit with as much depth as he used to, change the service return because he wants to get faster control over the point instead of just making it neutral and because he used to hit a lot of returns really deep with heavy spin and may just not have the racket speed to pull that off right now, and on that crazy backhand he needed to really come around the ball which could put a ton of pressure on the knees if he's on the run. Or, he may just be a bit rusty after the break. But I think it's more than that. The improvements in his game that made him go from an amazing clay court player to an amazing all-court player aren't there right now and likely won't be there in time for the US Open.

The match today between Djokovic and Federer may be repeated in a few weeks at the US Open if both players keep their level of play up. Djokovic had an easier draw than Federer so it's pretty difficult to judge how well he's actually playing. Against Nadal he looked pretty solid but Nadal's shorts have been sitting up a lot lately which works really well for Djokovic. He did seem to be hitting the ball cleanly and was serving well so this should be a good match. I'd give the edge to Federer today but Djokovic has the ability to stay with him and has a game really suited to a fast hardcourt. After a pretty disappointing season Djokovic will be looking to the US Open to have a strong finish. The fact that there isn't the same high expectation of him right now that he's had for the last couple of seasons should actually help his chances. He seems to play much better when there is little pressure on him. Should be another good final today with the winner in good position going into the last grand slam of the season.

Check back for our US Open Preview.

It's been a busy week in Cincinnati. Yesterday had centrecourt packed with great players from start to finish and today has been pretty much the same. Nadal won't be on court until this evening but there is plenty of other matches to update.

Federer's Quarter:

Ferrer managed to survive the toughest first two rounds in the draw, going through Wawrinka followed by Cilic. The bright side for Cilic is that he finally won a match on hardcourt this summer and against a good player in Ferrero. Unfortunately he wasn't much of a match for Ferrer. Based on his results up to now it might make sense for him to try to play New Haven to try and get a couple more matches in and drop out of it if he gets up to the semis and is worried about having enough rest before the US Open. We'll go more into that in our US Open preview that will be out next week. Ferrer put up a really good fight against Federer today and took it to three tight sets. Federer really picked up his serving in the final set (his percentage skyrocketed up to 77% first serves) but the match really could have gone either way with both players being broken in the final set. It will be good for Roger's confidence that he beat a good player today and he matches up really well against Hewitt in the next round. It still doesn't look like he has his game back enough to take down Murray but we'll see how things go as the the tournament progresses.

Fedrer will be taking on Hewitt in the quarterfinals tomorrow. Hewitt beat the surprising Sam Querrey in three sets today after just barely getting through Soderling in the first round and pretty routinely beating Becker in the 2nd round. Hewitt managed to save a few matched points in the Soderling match so he should be pretty happy at least with his mental game going into the Open. On paper he doesn't match up well with Federer at all but has been playing much better tennis this summer than he has in a long time and Roger still isn't up to full speed. Federer should get through but bigger upsets have happened this week. One of those upsets saw Querrey beat Roddick for the first time in two tiebreaks. Querrey has been playing good tennis for the entire US Open Bonus series and played a good match against Roddick a couple weeks ago, but with Andy getting ramped up for the Open this was a bit of a shocker. Roddick has still looked a bit off his game since Wimbledon aside from his match against Djokovic last week. When he's gone up against players who have been able to push back the results haven't been going his way. Two losses to a very tired Del Potro where he didn't play tactically well followed with his first loss to Querrey isn't a great way to be heading into a Grand Slam. Let's hope he remains focused when things shift to New York and can put in a better showing.

Murray's Quarter:

Again this week Murray is looking tough to beat. Stepanik is a pretty solid player and Murray rolled over him pretty easily today. Stepanik hasn't been playing great tennis so far in the hardcourt season but it's still a good win. Murray is going to like his next matchup with lucky loser Benneteau who got into the draw after Del Potro pulled out. This looked like it was set to be a Verdasco/Murray quarterfinal when the draw came out but an early exist by Verdasco followed by a tight match win by Benneteau over Garcia-Lopez gives Murray what should be an easy path into the semis to face either Federer or Hewitt.

Djokovic's Quarter:

This section of the draw should have the highest quality quafterfinal between Djokovic, who beat Chardy earlier today, and either Davydenko or Simon, who are just underway. Davydenko will be the favorite against Simon and should get through to setup a hard hitting match against Djokovic. Simon is a quality player and shouldn't be counted out yet but Davydenko continues to play pretty strong tennis this summer. He would also be able to give Djokovic more of a challenge than Simon. But as I'm writting this Simon has gone up an early break on Davydenko to lead 3-0 in the 1st set. With how Novak has looked in his first couple of matches this week, I wouldn't give either player good odds of beating him, unless they serve really well and take it to a couple of tiebreaks. On this half of the draw Djokovic looks good to get to the final and may even be able to win it if his game keeps improving.

Nadal's Quarter:

Nadal had a pretty rough looking first match and should be happy about the way the draw has worked out for him. Tonight he will be up against Mathieu, who should be more favorable to him than two of his other potential opponents in Karlovic and Monfils. Nadal should be able to get through Mathiew alright and go on to play either Berdych or Guccione. Again, the draw has worked out pretty well for Nadal with Gonzalez retiring against Berdych, and Tsonga going down to Guccione. Either Tsonga or Gonzalez would have been much more difficult to face for Nadal than Berdych because of their strong attacking games. It's been tough to say how Nadal will fare on the fast courts in Cincinnati so we don't want to look too far ahead for him, but there's a good chance he can get to the semifinals to likely face Djokovic. At least so far it doesn't look like he would be able to beat Novak but he would have two more matches to shake the rest of the rust off before that happened so we'll see how it goes.

Competition in the main draw of the Cincinnati Masters Series event gets underway later today. The top players should start rounding into form this week as this will be the final tournament that some of them play in preparation for the US Open. Coming off a win in Montreal last week Andy Murray has a pretty good chance of doing the same this week but there are a number of players on his half of the draw who could give him trouble along the way. Let's start things off from the top of the draw.

Federer's Quarter:

Roger will be looking to improve on his result from last week where he blew a 5-1 lead in the 3rd set to lose to Tsonga. Don't expect him to be too concerned about losing in his first tournament back after Wimbledon, even with the third set meltdown. He knows he lost focus and was playing more than well enough to beat Tsonga even though he didn't play very high quality tennis last week. Expect him to be better and more focused this week and maybe even challenge for the title. In order to do so he'll need to get through the most difficult quarter in the tournament. Federer's second match would be against whoever wins the brawl between Ferrer, Wawrinka, Ferrero, and Cilic. Any one of those guys could get through. Ferrer's knee is still a bit of a question mark. If he's recovered he would be the favorite over Wawrinka. Cilic really needs to get a win before the US Open after losing his first match in each of the last couple weeks, but he's got a tough first match against Ferrero. With how the two have been playing Ferrero probably has the edge there. Hopefully after looking at the draw Cilic made plans to head to New Haven next week to try and get at least a match win under his belt before the Open.

The other half of the quarter has Soderling, Hewitt and Roddick. Soderling and Hewitt will be facing each other in the first round and we'll see if Robin has recovered from his injury. If he's physiclly alright Soderling should make it through to face Roddick for a chance to get to the quarters. Andy Roddick is probably still not too happy with last week's outcome in Montreal where he lost to Del Potro for the second week in a row. And looking back on the match he probably feels like he should have won. Roddick had a good match against Djokovic last week so hopefully he remembers more about what he did well in that match than what he did poorly against Del Potro. It would be really interesting to see him play against Soderling, who will crush over ball that Roddick leaves sitting up, similar to what Del Potro did against him last week. If Andy sticks to his gameplan he should get through to the quarterfinals alright but if he starts coming over the ball in rallies like he did against Del Porto last week rather than keep the ball down, Soderling could end his run here. Without a mental collapse, Federer should get to the quarters to meet Roddick in a Wimbledon final rematch.

Murray's Quarter:

After a nice win last week in Montreal, Murray has a pretty favorable draw this week. He would probably prefer if his new position as #2 was reflected in this tournament to avoid Federer or Roddick before the finals but things start off for him pretty welll. He shouldn't have any trouble with his first or second matches but it will get interesting after that. The bottom of the quarter has both Del Potro, Murray's opponent in the final last week, and Fernando Verdasco. Del Potro is burnt out right now and could have a difficult first round match against Lopez. Don't be too surprised if Del Potro goes out early in this one. It could actually help him by allowing him more time to recover before the US Open. If he makes it through the first match Del Potro's next opponent would most likely be Verdasco. I would be very surprised if Juan Martin still had enough in the tank to get through this one. Verdasco is hitting the ball extremely well right now and rankings aside, should be the favorite to get to the quarters to face Murray. This is where things get very interesting. Verdasco has the type of game that can really hurt Murray. I'd rank his forehand above Gonzalez' and he is hitting with both a ton of power and a lot of consistency. He's got a good serve himself and can absolutely crush Murray's second serves. Murray is a rallying player and Verdasco is a guy you don't want to get into a rally against. With the correct gameplan Murray can get through but Verdasco is one of the players that Murray matches up worst against on the tour. Don't be too surprised if you see Verdasco in the semis next saturday. If he's hitting like he was against Roddick last week he has a good shot at getting there.

UPDATE: Del Poto dropped out due to fatigue. Very smart move. Look for him to be back in form for the US Open.