1 Novak Djokovic and Frenchman Gael Monfils advanced to the semi-finals of the Rogers Cup with victories over Tomas Berdych and home-crowd favourite Milos Raonic here.
Advertisement
Djokovic broke his opponent in the third game of the deciding set – converting on his second such opportunity in the match at that juncture to go up 2-1 in the second.
Djokovic was the big favourite Friday evening against the fifth-seeded Czech, having won 24 of their previous 26 matches, but he squandered a 5-2 first-set lead and almost lost the tie-breaker when he went down 3-6, reports Efe.
Novak Djokovic wiped the bad taste of a Wimbledon defeat from his mouth with a pulsating performance at the Rogers Cup in Toronto this weekend. “On hard court he’s been beating me, not easy but two sets [in] Miami, now here”. “He plays all different kind of game”.
The tournament’s second seed answered that call with a 216-km/h serve Kei Nishikori couldn’t return.
Jones led a race-high 154 of 250 laps, but it took a late inside move for Jones to overcome Dillon for his first victory since at Dover in May.
“It was a really wonderful moment”, Djokovic said with a smile. “But I made progress and gained in confidence at the right time”. The last time Nishikori won was, of course, the semifinals at the U.S. Open in 2014.
According to Whitaker, Djokovic did not play his best tennis this week in spite of recording his 300 Masters 1000 title, eclipsing Rafael Nadal’s own record of 29.
Serving for the set at 5-3, the Swiss blinked, falling behind 0-40 and missing a backhand on the second to give Nishikori the break back.
With the second set tied at 5-5 and the score at deuce, Djokovic won a pair of rallies to earn the decisive break. He converted on the first after 37 minutes. Wawrinka had a chance to win the first-set tiebreak on serve at 6-5, but double-faulted. But that slowly slipped away as his 37 unforced errors mounted.
Djokovic dominated the service game as goes ahead in terms of volume and percentage against the Japanese technician, with 19 of 23 (83%) first serve points against 13 of 21 (62%) from Kei Nishikori. Before the final, Nishikori had won 86 per cent of the Rogers Cup games in which he had served.
“I just tried to concentrate in the tiebreaker”, Nishikori said. I knew I had to step it up, otherwise he’s going to come back. But Nishikori clawed his way back, breaking the Serbian at 3-3 to take his first lead of the contest. “I didn’t”, Wawrinka said.
In the women’s final, Simona Halep beat a mistake-prone Madison Keys 7-6 (7-2), 6-3 to claim her 14th career singles crown.
Advertisement
Halep upgraded her career record against Keys to 3-1, having trampled the American over three sets in their most recent encounter at Wimbledon earlier this month, and will rise to the third spot when the world rankings are issued on Monday. “And speaking of the hugs, I’m going to do something that I’ve never done before”.
