Rome: Federer Loses To Gasquet; Nadal, Murray Reach Semis

Roger Federer lost a tight 4-6 7-6(2) 7-6(4) clay court match to Richard Gasquet at the Rome Masters despite being up a set and a break. Gasquet followed up his best win in over two years with by defeating 2010 Wimbledon finalist Tomas Berdych 4-6 6-2 6-4 to reach the semifinals.

Joining him in the semifinals of the Rome Masters 1000 tournament is World #1 Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray, who will face each other on one side of the draw. Murray will likely face red-hot Novak Djokovic (who has now won 34 consecutive matches in 2011) in the other semifinal, if Djokovic gets past Robin Soderling in the last quarterfinal. Gasquet will face Nadal.

Nadal will retain his #1 ranking going into Roland Garros, where he will be the favorite to win a 6th French Open title. If Nadal had not reached the semifinal and Djokovic won the tournament, the Serb would have reached the #1 ranking. The Spaniard is defending a huge number of ranking points for the next several months, since he won the last three major tournaments of the year.

UPDATE 05/12/2011 16:10PM PDT
Djokovic dismissed Soderling 6-3 6-3 to win his 35th match of the year and will face Murray, not Gasquet. I expect a fourth consecutive Djokovic-Nadal Masters 1000 final. This time, one would have to give the edge to Djokovic to go all the way and claim the title, since he showed last week he doesn't need to fear Nadal on clay.