The Fantastic Four

Perhaps we can fit this tournament in on time after all. The London clouds have decided they've screwed with us enough, and the men were able to complete the quarterfinals today. And, oddly enough, the person who had the easiest time of it today was Rafael Nadal.

Yeah, Nadal, the same guy who needed five sets in each of his last two matches, had a surprisingly routine straight sets win over Berdych. Many thought the Czech had a great shot at knocking Rafa. Berdych, after all, was the greatest beneficiary of the sort-of subjective seeding. Nadal had racked up considerable court time his last two times out, and there was still doubt as to his prowess on grass, and... well, so much for that. Nadal breezed past Berdych in progressively easier sets.

What wasn't easy was his semifinal opponent, Novak Djokovic's, victory. In what was probably the match of the tournament, he emerged from a titanic, five set, five-hour slugfest with Marcos Baghdatis. Indeed, the audience of Court 1 had a great day of tennis play out in front of them with this match and Gasquet's ascention (which will be addressed in a separate post). But this had it all (except serve-and-volleying): Competitive sets, grinding, battling points, comebacks, momentum swings, explosions of emotion, two men that both wanted it badly... what else could you want? The first three sets going to tiebreaks, Baghdatis coming back from down two sets to level the match, Djokovic finally trimphing at the end. 413 total points played, and Djokovic only won seven more than Baghdatis. That's a pretty competitive contest, don't you think? Ultimately, Novak's superior serving- he served at 70% to Marcos' 50%- carried the day.

And hey, waddaya know... it turns out not playing for a week can leave you rusty. Federer dropped a set to Ferrero, but rebounded to win the next two without much trouble. He'll now face Gasquet, a prospect much less appealing than getting to whip Roddick around again.