ATP Tour Finals: Semifinal Review and Final Preview

World #1 Rafael Nadal will face World #2 Roger Federer in the final match of the 2010 ATP tennis season at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals in London today. As MadProfessah predicted on Friday, Federer was able to dismiss World #3 Novak Djokovic in straight sets while World #5 Andy Murray put up a stern challenge to prevent this 22nd meeting in the storied rivalry between the two greatest players of their generation.

Semifinals Review

The two semifinals were thrilling in their own way. Federer demolished the Serb in a 6-1 6-4 match which was not as close as the score reveals. Essentially, Federer won two 6-1 sets but went through "a bad patch" at the beginning of the second set where he lost 3 consecutive games. The Swiss quickly recovered and dispatched Djokovic to continue his preparation for next week's Davis Cup Final matchup versus France in Belgrade.

The Nadal-Murray match was one of the best matches of the year, with the Spaniard (barely) prevailing 7-6(5) 3-6 7-6(6). There were some incredible 27 and 36(!) stroke rallies in the first set, with  incredibly high quality tennis on both sides of the net. Murray basically lost the first set because after enjoying a hot serving streak for the majority of the set, in the tiebreaker he couldn't buy a first serve. If you can't serve well, it makes it very difficult to win  a tiebreaker where every point is effectively a breakpoint. Interestingly the second set was similar to the second set in the Federer-Djokovic match where after basically playing to a draw at 3-all suddenly Nadal went through a bad patch  and lost 3 games in a row. (Murray grew more aggressive and was able to break Nadal twice in ten minutes to win the set). In the third set Nadal got the early break and served for the match at 5-4 where, inexplicably, he was broken after holding a match point. Would he be able to prevail in the inevitable tiebreak? It didn't look like it when Murray won the first three points of the tiebreak and led 4-2 on the change over. However, as usual, Nadal did not give up and won the mini-break back to hold a second match point 5-6 on Murray's serve.Murray was able to defend that point with some incredible gets and at 6-6 went for a huge cross-court winner which flew a couple inches wide giving Nadal his third match point on his serve. The World #1 was able to win the match point with his patented inside-out cross-court forehand winner into the far corner of the court to reach the Tour Final for the first time in his storied career.

Finals Preview

This is the 22nd meeting between the 24-year-old 9-time grand slam champion and the 29-year-old 16-time grand slam champion. The younger player enjoys a 14-7 career head-to-head edge; all but 4 of their meetings have been in finals (where Nadal leads 12-5) but at the season-ending championships Federer leads 2-0 (but those wins came when Nadal was usually exhausted at the end of the season). In hard court finals, Nadal leads 2-1 (2009 Australian Open final, 2006 Dubai final). Nadal is also experiencing one of history's greatest seasons ever, having won every clay court match he played this year and winning the last three consecutive grand slam titles with a better than even shot of claiming the "Nadal slam" in Melbourne in a few months.

There are four possibilities for the match result (tabulated below with associated estimated probabilities)

Match Result              Probability
Federer wins in 2 sets        33% 
Nadal wins in 2 sets          17%
Federer wins in 3 sets        20%
Nadal wins in 3 sets          30%

This computes to a 53% chance for Federer to win with a 47% chance for Nadal, if there is an equally likelihood of a 2-set and 3-set match. Actually, looking at their 21 previous matches, only 8 of their matches have gone the distance. All that being said, the match should be close and exciting!

MadProfessah's prediction: Federer in 2 sets; Nadal in 3 sets with a distinct edge to whomever wins the first set.