“But I know what to do tactically. I took confidence into the second set, tried to be aggressive on returns and stood farther back than usual”.
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“It was a really tight game”.
Nishikori has faced the world number one in three Masters 1000 events this year and lost each time – the final of the Miami Open in April and the semi-finals of the Madrid Open and the Internazionali BNL d’Italia the following month.
After clinching his 30th ATP World Tour Masters 1000 title, Djokovic immediately started to turn his attention to something more elusive, an Olympic gold medal.
Although second seed Wawrinka edged ahead early on, there were danger signs for the Swiss as he struggled to land a high percentage of first serves and proved unusually erratic on the backhand wing.
And the final score represents a mild surprise.
“I’ve been working on my serve a lot the last couple of years, and I think especially on the second serve it has gave me an advantage, more depth on the second serve and so forth”, Djokovic said. I have played him many times. Monfils displayed his renowned athleticism in a high-quality quarter-final, relying on his lightning-fast court coverage to manufacture a 6-4 6-4 victory over the losing Wimbledon finalist. The opening set lasted 63 minutes and saw Wawrinka fail to convert on four set point opportunities before Nishikori converted on his first set point opportunity, reports Xinhua. “I was not playing my best”.
Novak Djokovic, of Serbia, reaches for a shot from Gael Monfils, of France, during a semifinal at the Rogers Cup tennis tournament, Saturday, Jully 30, 2016, in Toronto. The 29-year-old Serb has six victories this year and 65 in his career. Nishikori’s campaign at the All England Club came to an end after he was forced to retire his Round-16 match against Marin Cilic due to an injury.
Switzerland’s Stan Wawrinka advanced to the semifinals of the Rogers Cup with a 6-1, 6-3 win over South Africa’s Kevin Anderson on Friday. And a point after his emphatic second-set ace, Wawrinka lined up a potential backhand victor against an out-of-position Nishikori, only to steer the shot wide right.
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Obviously frustrated, Wawrinka leaned on the net after the misplay, shaking his head then pulling his shirt over his face as he walked back to the baseline to the laughter of fans. “I’m very grateful for the support of Serbian people who live here and of course Canadian crowd and all the global people coming to watch this tournament”. Today it wasn’t to be but I won in straight sets. “That’s just sport, that’s tennis, that kind of stuff happens to me, it happens to everybody and as soon as we went to the change-over, the most important thing for me personally was to have a short memory about it and also to communicate with Adil that I was ready to move on to the tiebreaker”.
