Nadal 3-6, 6-4, 7-6(2), 6-3
Djokovic 7-5, 4-6, 6-4, 6-2

nadal in 3...7-5,6-3,6-4
nole in 4.....6-3,4-6,6-4,6-3

nadal: 6-4 7-5 6-3

nole: 7-5 6-3 6-2

Melzer 64 36 75 62
Nadal 36 64 64 61

melzer 6-4, 3-6, 7-6, 6-4
nadal 7-5, 6-4, 6-3

söderling showed a hard&flat hitter can excel at heavy conditions. i predict another upset.

almagro in 4 5-7 7-5 7-6 6-2.
djokovic in 4 6-4 4-6 6-3 6-2

Nadal 6-4 5-7 6-3 6-4

djokovic 6-4 7-6 4-6 7-5

Rafa: 7/5 6/4 6/3

Melzer: 6/4 2/6 6/3 7/6

Rafa: 7-5, 6-3, 6-2

Melzer: 6-3, 5-7, 6-4, 6-3

Nadal 5-7, 6-3, 6-4, 6-2

Djokovic 6-4, 4-6, 6-2, 7-5

Nadal 3-6 6-2 6-0 6-0
Djokovic 7-5 6-4 3-6 6-1

Heavy conditons to favor almagro, but

nadal 6-4 7-6 6-4
djokovic 6-3 4-6 6-3 6-3

Nadal 6-3, 6-1, 6-3
Melzer 4-6, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3, 6-1

Revision:

Nadal 6-3, 6-1, 6-3
Djokovic 4-6, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3, 6-1 (it should be Nole not melzer)

Rafa in 3
Melzer in 4

so i see all the nadaltards are underestimating nadal's opponent like last year....
i remember last year, every nadal fan was saying nadal would destroy soderling and soderling destroyed nadal.

i mean i like nadal, but if almAgro comes with his mental midgetry issues sorted i think he could take out rafa.
but if almUgro comes, then nadal will win easy as almugro will bend over to his god.
even if he has match points like in paris masters last year, almugro realised what he was doing to his god and how the spanish people will hate him for beating their god, so he bent over just in time.

i mean how dare any spaniards beat their god.
no one dare touch him, if u beat him, then u will become public enemy number 1 in spain.

hola atr.......ever so delightfully funny...

Nadal 4-6,6-4,6-3,6-2

Djoker 6-3,4-6,6-3,6-3

atr: i'm not underestimating rafa's opponent. i think it will be a tough match. maybe 4 or 5 sets. but i still think rafa will win it. he's playing much better than he was last year and he wants to win this tourney so, so badly. i just don't see another upset on the cards (watch me be wrong now :P)

wow!!!
stosur just stunned serena!!!
amazing!!!

yep...she's finally getting her head issues sorted out. think the conditions suit her game better. she plays jankovic in the SF, and the other is played by schiavone and dementiava. i think demen is being favoured to win the title though stosur will have lots of cofidence from knocking out henin and serena.

clayking,
It was amazing. Power is winning RG. Sam beat the Queen of Clay and the #1. She should win RG. ATR should be happy. He can cheer for somebody from his home country.

@chr18
i think the dynamic of clay court tennis is changing. Back in the day,speedsters with little power like David Ferrer would win the French,but thats changing now. As Del Potro,Soderling and Berdych have shown,guys are now strong enough to make their shots penetrate through a clay court with ease.

@homos
good news for me that stosur won :p btw are u asutralian?

This video proves my point aboust soderling. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcctFLLqCEY&playnext_from=TL&videos=uKR vjPSueOo&feature=recentu

You guys gave Melzer too much credit!

yes,
i am pretty happy about her..
though i am not happy she defeated the queen, yet i generally like her 'cause she is an mazing doubles player too..
and i do have soft corner about any player who is an expert in handling both forms of the game..
i hope she reaches final..
though elena, the eternal bridesmaid, should win RG this year..

I give Nole too much credit.

isabeau,

I have to give you credit for giving me the courage to go with my gut feeling and pick Melzer for the win! Of course, my predicted scores are way off and it was five sets instead of four, but I don't care! I learned from my mistake of not going with my instinct and going along with the experts in picking Fed to beat Sod. No more!

That was quite a match! I only saw the end, when Melzer was trying to close it out in the fifth! Crazy! It was great for him to come back from two sets down. I thought Djoker was overdue for a loss!

Nativenewyorker,
I smiled when you and Raindrops chose Melzer, because I knew then that my crazy instinct may not be that crazy after all...:)
Its all about quietening down your heart and listening to your instinct and then cross checking this by objectively analysing players, the conditions, the draw and their apparent form.
If you do this, I think 80% of the time, you can predict the winner correctly. The score on the other hand is a little bit harder to determine..:)

Raindrops would have won but changed Melzer to Djokovic

so isabeau77 wins, and beats the experts as well!

isabeu and anand - first to email me @ricky.dimon@tennistalk.com gets to be the guest expert for Friday. Don't delay otherwise the torched will be passed to Wednesday's runner-up!

I rebirth to my original picks ahahahahahahahahahahaha.

RickyDimon- You've got mail...:)

rain: no cheating!!! ;)

one small doubt..
how does the picks work??

because isabeau77(the winner) predicted this..
Rafa: 7/5 6/4 6/3
Melzer: 6/4 2/6 6/3 7/6

clayking(that happens to be me) predicted this
melzer 6-4, 3-6, 7-6, 6-4
nadal 7-5, 6-4, 6-3

same scoreline for nadal almagro..
and very close scoreline for melzer djokoboy.
vamos, tell me how this works..
how is the games calculated??
just wanna know so that in future i have no confusions..
because the way i'm calculating,
i predicted melzer to win 22 games and lose 20..
isa predicted melzer to win 21 and lose 19..
wat happened was melzer won 24 and lost 24..
so it is sort of a tie between us, with my predicted number of games being closer to actual score ..
how was the tie between us broken??

ohh awfully close...actually it is Ricky who normally decides the winner for ths one...u have mentioned the games scneario and lookd at it from another view u hold the edge imo ! u got 3 set scores excatly right while the other one got only 2 ! :S

anyway , both of you deserve it imo, RICKy how did u chose??

hello vamosrafa.....iv a great site for u...if u havent really been on it that is.....some good tennis analysis(in video)...

fuzzyyellowballs.com

oh yes I have visited this site quit a few times before ,it is a good one..anyway thank you very much for sharing :)

vrael: Have you looked at LaChaineMeteo recently? Thunderstorms and high winds for Sunday have been replaced by light wind and showers. With temperatures of 25° plus it will be hot and humid. Not the best news.

yes, today was an exact tie

i considered the final tiebreaker, beyond number of correct picks, number of correct sets, and number of correct games, to be isa picking the fourth set as a tiebreaker. Melzer winning in a fourth-set tiebreaker is more competitive than Melzer winning the fourth set 6-4.

also, isabeau ALSO won Tuesday's picks and did not get to be the guest expert, so that was ALSO part of the tiebreaker

that said, both of you deserve to be semifinal guest experts

fair enough ricky..
i just wanted to know how the thing worked exactly since the competitions will heat up in sf, where there will more closer scorelines and all would want to be a part of the picks for the final..
also, i have a bronze racket to defend in few days and i should not be unaware of rules.. :P

congrats isa to be the guest picker..

clayking - i want you in expert picks as well. cause it WAS a tie. and with only 2 matches, 4 experts are a good number to increase length/interest of the blog. email me ricky.dimon@tennistalk.com

oh seriously??
thanks..
my first one.. :P
10 mins ricky..

ricky,
i have sent the mail..

CONGRATS clayking.

@ed...yes i did see the predictions......still its better than thunderstorms....if its hot the moisture might not last long in the clay...25 deg plus temp is pretty good imo....lets hope the match is scheduled at a time where the probability of showers is the least......IT WONT RAIN THE WHOLE DAY WOULD IT???

COngrats clayking, welldone :D

@vrael and ed ... the exakt forecast wil only be known on saturday becoz the forecast for sunday has been changing since the past 2 days !

oh thanks vrael and vamos..
today i'm taking an early leave of TT since there are no more interesting matches..
and mixed doubles is not my cup of tea, specially since it has no player i like....

amazingly bad women's semifinals

let's hope the men come through tomorrow

Vael: No, it couldnt rain all day!
Weather forecast has reverted back to thunderstorms and high winds on Sunday.
I used to go to RG for semi-finals but got fed up with all the hanging around waiting for the rain to stop. There is almost nowhere to shelter unless you manage to squeeze into one of the bars the second the rain starts. So now content myself with watching on TV.

thunderstorms and high winds again......i think ill stop worrying abt it now.....que sera sera...my new moto!!!

VAMOS!!!