The semifinals of the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals are set: Roger Federer will play Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal will play Andy Murray. Federer and Nadal are undefeated through the first three round-robin rounds with Nadal only dropping his very first set of the tournament against Andy Roddick, although Djokovic should probably have won the first set in their match. Federer was pretty lucky not to lose the first set against Robin Soderling.
That being said, Nadal has a 8-4 career edge against Murray, a 14-7 lead against Federer and a 15-7 lead against Djokovic. He is, after all, the World's #1 player and the current holder of 3 of the 4 major title, having won 3 in a row in 2010. He has never won this tournament, because he's usually dead tired by this point in the season. He did not play in 2008 and lost all 3 round-robin matches last year. However, it's 2010 and I expect him to at least get to the final, where I suspect he will play Federer in a mouth-watering final. Although Nadal leads the Greatest Of All Time in their overall head-to-head and beat him once this year as well as the last time they met on a hard court (the inexplicable 2009 Australian Open final), their hard court record head-to-head is tied 3-3 with Federer beating Nadal twice in the semifinals of the year-ending championships in 2006 and 2007. However, in Finals one would have to give the edge to Nadal (12-5).
Can Novak and Andy stop another Fedal final? Possibly, since Murray sports a 2-1 lead over Nadal (4-4 career on hard courts) this year, both time winning on hard courts including the last time they played in the semifinals of Toronto (where Murray also beat Federer). His single loss to Nadal came in London earlier this year in the Wimbledon semis. For all intents and purposes that was the equivalent of a Tour final. Murray himself has been lowering expectations about his chances against Nadal (and Federer) in his press conferences this week. However, I think he probably has the best chance of the four of preventing Nadal from winning his first tour championships.
While Nadal faces the person most likely to beat him, Federer plays the person least likely to beat him. (He beat Murray this week in round-robin play but has an overall 5-8 losing record to the Scot.) Djkovic trails Federer 6-12 in their career match-up, including 1-3 for the year. Of course that one win was in the semifinals of the 2010 US Open where Federer held two match points and lost. One does feel if the match is close, Federer will likely lose it. Ever since then, Federer has beaten Novak relatively easily and I expect that will be the case tomorrow.
MadProfessah's predictions: Nadal defeats Murray in 3 sets; Federer defeats Djokovic in 2 sets.
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