Heading into today’s first semi-final at the Barclay’s ATP World Tour Finals between Kei Nishikori and Novak Djokovic, the hope was tennis fans would finally be treated to something resembling a competitive match after a week of nothing but one-sided beat downs.
While it may not have looked promising early on, as the No. 1 seed absolutely steamrolled the 2014 US Open finalist in the opening set, that is exactly what these two men delivered…at least for one set. After what was an extremely entertaining second set, Djokovic managed to right the ship and cruise to a 6-1, 3-6, 6-0 victory to advance to Sunday’s finale.
To his credit, Nishikori did not go quietly after dropping his own serve to open set number two and battling an apparent wrist injury, he immediately broke back and proceeded to push his opponent around the court for roughly thirty minutes, with one powerful groundstroke after another. At long last, the fans in attendance were finally given a glimpse of what a competitive match could potentially look like against the top seed.
Unfortunately for them…it did not last nearly long enough. After allowing Djokovic to wiggle out of a potentially fatal early break of serve to start the final set, it was clear the Japanese No. 1 had missed his opportunity. Despite continuing to play some decent tennis, he was simply unable to raise his level of play when it mattered most.
Prior to his hiccup in the second, this year’s trip to London had pretty much been a walk in the park for the seven-time Grand Slam winner, as he has lost a combined total of just nine games in his previous three matches. Heading into the week, the twenty-seven year old had two goals in mind…holding on to his ranking as the No. 1 player in the game and earning his third consecutive World Finals crown.
While he took care of the latter earlier in the week, the only thing standing in his way from completing his to-do-list will be either Roger Federer or Stan Wawrinka. My guess is the vast majority of fans are hoping for another Novak - Roger battle to close out the 2014 ATP Tour campaign and frankly who could blame them.
