While Julien Benneteau put together one heck of a run during this week’s ATP Tour stop in Cincinnati, highlighted by his upset win over No. 3 seed Stan Wawrinka, it was only a matter of time before his surprising run came to an end.
David Ferrer handed the number forty-one player in the world a dose of reality on Saturday afternoon, wasting little time is dismissing the thirty-two year old tour vet in straight sets to advance to Sunday’s Final at the Western and Southern Open.
The talented Spaniard needed just over an hour to move onto his first ATP Masters 1000 Final of the season, pushing the Frenchman all over the court from start to finish. While Wawrinka forgot to show up for their quart-final date on Friday afternoon, Ferrer was all business this afternoon.
In the end, the scoreboard read 6-3, 6-2 in favour of the No. 6 seed and to be honest, it was a rather flattering scoreline for Mr. Benneteau. While Ferrer had to face just one break point on his serve for the entire match, he broke his opponents serve in four of his nine serve games and quickly turned this one into a route.
Ferrer will be gunning for the twenty-second title of his career on Sunday afternoon but will be bringing a less than stellar 1 – 5 career mark in Masters 1000 finals into the match. The former No. 3 player in the world will have to wait until Saturday evening's session to find out who is opponent will be, as Milos Raonic squares off against Roger Federer in what will be a rematch of their Wimbledon semi-final earlier this summer.
While the diminutive thirty-two year old has a perfect 4-0 record against the hard-serving Canadian, he has gone a staggering 0-15 when facing the seventeen-time Grand Slam champ. One would think he would love to see Raonic pull off the upset, who like Ferrer has yet to beat Federer in five head-to-head matchups, but something tells this writer he will not be so lucky.