Cincinnati Semifinals

Wow, another great day of tennis in Cincinnati. One match went exactly as expected, as a fresh Federer tore through Davydenko - while the Russian was able to manufacture a few points of magic, he wasn't strong enough to avoid the inevitable, as Federer finished him off in straight sets. But Davy was not in his best form, and that is exactly what he would have needed to stage the upset, there.

Two of the other matches were nominally upsets, as Mardy Fish beat Andy Murray and Andy Roddick beat Novak Djokovic, but both of them had held winning streaks over their opponents going into today's match, and the world's number 3 and 4 were overtired and not fond of the conditions. So while those results may have been upsets, they shouldn't have come as complete surprises. The Murray-Fish match was a great one - one blowout set sandwiched in between two really tight ones, and Mardy just ended up being a little bit tougher in the end.

But the fourth match was an absolute shocker - Marcos Bagdhatis played as well as I've seen him play since 2007 at least to upset the world number one Rafael Nadal. He served out of his mind and hit some absolutely spectacular shots, while Nadal was just a bit below his best. Down break points at 4-all in the set, Nadal double-faulted. That's something I've never seen him do in a situation like that, and it just goes to show how he doesn't care for these conditions. Credit to Baghdatis for closing it out, though, and even for getting to that point. It was excellent to see.

So our two semifinal match-ups feature Mardy Fish against Andy Roddick and Roger Federer against Marcos Baghdatis. The Fed-Baggy match is a rematch of an Australian Open final, where Baggy had his break-out run several years ago, only to lose to Federer at that stage. You have to favor Federer again here, as Fed has picked up his game this season, but Baghdatis clipped him the last time they played, earlier this year in one of the Spring hardcourt masters events. That may have been an anomaly, though - we'll just have to wait and see.

For the Roddick-Fish match, the situation is surprisingly similar. Roddick owns Fish in their head-to-head, but Fish won their most recent match, in Atlanta just a few weeks ago. Of course, that was while Roddick was suffering from his minor bout with mono, so that was probably a factor. Neither Fish nor Roddick is likely going to be at their absolute best tomorrow, as neither player was at 100% today and they have the early match tomorrow, and Fish had to play a doubles match this evening, which he unfortunately lost 10-8 in the third set super-tiebreaker. The plus side is that whoever wins will have more of a chance to recuperate before the final...

... where they will almost certainly have to play Federer. Fish has beaten Fed in a Masters event like this one, on a hard court, a couple of years ago. And one of Roddick's two wins over Fed came at the Canada Masters in 2003. That said, Federer is still the immense favorite to win this tournament, considering the opposition he has left to fight through. Roddick and Federe haven't played yet this year, and the last Masters final before the U.S. open would be a pretty good place to renew their one-sided rivalry. But who knows? We could get a Baghdatis-Fish final!