The inaugural New York Open has seen its strong field of seeded players battle their way to the semifinals. Kei Nishikori, the fifth seed is into his first tour-level semifinal in his first ATP World Tour tournament back.
In the first semifinal of the day, fourth-seeded Adrian Mannarino meets second-seeded American and home favorite Sam Querrey. The two will battle it out for a spot in their first tour-level final of 2018 at 1 PM in Long Island.
Head-To-Head
Mannarino holds the head-to-head edge over the American with a 3-0 record over Querrey. Their last meeting came at the Western and Southern Open last year with the Frenchman winning in straight sets. Their other two meetings also came in the United States with the fourth-seeded Frenchman taking victories at the Miami Open and the US Open.
New York Open Results
Both players opened the tournament with a bye as top-four seeds. Querrey took on Mikhail Youzhny in his first match and took that quite comfortably. In his quarterfinal match, he met Ivo Karlovic. It was quite expected, that two powerful servers would see themselves in two tiebreak sets. Querrey's array of weapons allowed him to take the match in those two breakers.
For Mannarino, it wasn't the easiest road to the semifinals. Peter Gojowczyk took the opening set but after losing the second set and going down 1-4 in the third, the German called it quits. Spanish qualifier Adrian Menendez-Maceiras battled against the Frenchman, taking the second set, but Mannarino's hard court game proved too much in the end.
Analysis
Mannarino said that the courts were playing slow after his victory over Menendez-Maceiras, “It’s really slow, so, you never know if you have to be the guy who’s playing aggressive or not because if you’re playing aggressive, the ball is going to come back and back again, so you have to make a decision every time to see what to do; to be defensive or offensive, this is really a tactic as I said, so we’ll see.”
The slower courts could play into favor for the Frenchman, giving him better opportunities to get some of the American's serves back into play. The mental edge goes to Mannarino as well, with the head-to-head of 3-0 over the American.
Querrey definitely holds the edge in serving and groundstrokes but this match could come down to a battle of movement due to the slower speed of the courts in New York.
Prediction: Mannarino in three sets
