Today, in Tokyo, there were quite a few three setters. Murray had a pretty tough opening round playing Marcos Baghdatis who reached the finals of Kuala Lumpur last week. He needed three sets to beat the Cypriot. Tipsarevic, who won Kuala Lumpur, had chances to beat Tursunov but despite being breaks up on him, Tursunov
Four matches were completed in Tokyo, an ATP 500 event. Mardy Fish played Ryan Harrison for the third time this year and for the third time, he beat him. Harrison did push Fish to a third set, but Fish still claimed the victory 6-4, 3-6, 7-5. Generally, Americans have not fared that well in events
Let's start with the first fourth-round match of the day. Janko Tipsarevic played Juan Carlos Ferrero. The two have met twice but not in four years. Ferrero won both encounters but both times they met, the match was close. It was expected that this would be a long match too. And boy was it! The
Berlocq has an unusual bit of trivia associated with him. In 2006 at Miami, Berlocq faced Donald Young, who was also playing his first official ATP event (that is, ATP 250 or above). He beat Young love and love. In the second round, he lost to James Blake, love and love. Love had a lot
Today, seeds played quite well, with only one seed, Viktor Troicki, losing. Troicki lost to Alejandro Falla, the player that nearly knocked out Federer. Speaking of Federer, he beat Falla's Colombian compatriot, Santiago Giraldo. Federer lost his serve 3 times, which was a bit sloppy on his part, but at least he broke 7 times
And then there was four. At the beginning of the tournament, there was some hope that the top four seeds might make it to the semifinals. Such occurrences are rare enough. There were question marks hanging over the heads of 3 of the top 4 players who lost early in Montreal. With the loss of
Beating Nadal is no easy task. He can come back from a grinding match like he did against Verdacso and come back fresh as a daisy the following day. Mardy Fish, who is having his best summer ever, wasn't about to believe that Nadal was going to roll over. As he headed out onto court,
Verdasco must get a lot of heartache playing Nadal. He's never beaten him in 11 attempts, and for a while, he was struggling to win sets. But if Verdasco had a chance to upset Nadal, today was it. Nadal had burned his fingers at a dinner handling a hot plate. He had lost to Dodig
Mardy Fish vs. Nikolay Davydenko seemed like a good match. Davydenko had nearly taken a set off of Djokovic and his game seemed to be getting back in order. Not so much, it turns out. Davydenko is still apparently nervous about his first serve so he spins it in to keep the percentage high. Fish
Ivan Ljubicic must know how Mardy Fish feels. Three times Ljubicic reached a Masters finals, and three times he came up second. To be fair, Ljubicic played opponents like Federer and Nadal. Then, in 2010, Ljubicic had the tournament of his life in Indian Wells. He beat Nadal. He beat Djokovic. And in the finals,
