It's the indoor hard-court ATP Masters tournament in the Bercy section of Paris and the French players Michael Llodra and Gael Monfils are playing some of their best tennis of the year. Monfils almost always does well before a French crowd, and lost in the finals of this tournament to Novak Djokovic last year in a 3-set thriller. This year he has already saved two match points against World Top 10 stalwart Fernando Verdasco and today beat World #4 Andy Murray 6-2 2-6 6-3 to reach the semifinals and face World #2 Roger Federer who is playing in his first semifinals at the Paris Masters.
In the other half of the draw is the amazing left-handed serve and volleyer Llodra who has been more well-known as a doubles player but who took out defending champion Djokovic in straight sets 7-6 6-2 and today defeated World #11 Nikolay Davydenko 7-5 6-1 to face World #5 Robin Soderling in the semifinals.
Could there be an all-French final on Sunday? Doubtful. I predict a Federer-Soderling final, with Federer winning his first Paris Masters title, and his 18th career Masters title overall.
The year's last ATP Tournament, the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, begin with the Top 8 players on Sunday November 21st in London where Rafael Nadal, Federer, Djokovic, Murray, Soderling, Tomas Berdych, David Ferrer and Andy Roddick have all qualified for the most prestigious and lucrative non-major tournament of the year.
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