Article

  • Its Nadal and Berdych in a Semifinal Showdown

    4/3/08 10:47 PM | Jonathan Morgan
    - Both players seem to have hit their stride and are playing great in this tournament. This will be the pair's 7th career meeting, with a spot in the finals on the line.

    Tomas Berdych. A quick description of his would be the following: Tall, big serve, punishing groundstrokes on both ends, inconsistent, mental midget. But this week, he has been everything but the final two.

    Rafael Nadal is, well, Rafa Nadal. Hard courts may not be his favorite surface (or even his 2nd favorite considering his Wimbledon successes), but he is no pushover. In the past two weeks he's gotten some revenge over opponents that have beaten him on hard courts in the past in Tsonga and Blake twice.

    But Berdych is another story. Berdych and Nadal have played 6 matches in their history. 3 on hard courts, which Berdych all won, 2 on clay, and 1 on grass, which Nadal has won. In their hard court matches, Berdych has overwhelmed Nadal with his flat strokes and aggresive hitting, forcing Nadal well behind the baseline scrambling to recover or hit a wicked passing shot.

    To Nadal's credit, he did make those 3 matches close, 2 of them went 3 sets and the 3rd was a tightly contsted 2 setter indoors in Madrid. However, they haven't played on hard courts since that Madrid match in October 2006. Berdych is on fire and playing well as he hopes to avoid the brainfart that he usually has on the business ends of tournaments. Nadal is out to get himself some good points to not only get his hard court confidence up, but to give him a bit of a boost heading into the clay season (not that he needs it)

    Here is how the matchup will go. Berdych will serve big and Nadal will:

    A- Return serve from 10 metres behind the baseline allowing Berdych to easily move in a put away a winner

    B- Return from a neutral return position and proceed with the point.

    C- Try to move in and be aggresive on Berdych's second serve and take it early. He will hit some errors with this tactic for sure but it will pay dividends in the end.

    Nadal will try to serve smart. He doesn't posess a huge serve like Tomas, but spins and placement will be more important for Nadal as he will try to take control of the point off the 3rd ball and finish it a few points later.

    All-out aggresion and power vs. Defensive Maverick with offensive skills. What a matchup.

    The intangibles will be the wind for sure. If they play the day semifinal, the wind could be more of a factor, as it tends to die down more at night. Berdych is a terrible wind player. One need only look at a few of his wild losses to see that, including these men's matchup at Wimbledon 2007 on a very windy day where Nadal dominated.

    A barnburner this one should be. Berdych should be the betting favorite, but gambling against Nadal on any surface at any time against anyone is a bit risky. The guy simply does not give up.

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Comments

This is going to be insane. Hopefully Rafa will pull of the win. VAMOS

RafaNadalGirl20 , 4/4/08 5:06 AM


Talent-wise on hard courts it should be close, but unless Berdych has gotten his mental game together, I'd be surprised if this isn't a rout.

RickyDimon , 4/4/08 5:51 AM


Birdman just double-faulted the set away at 6-7 in the tiebreaker. Here comes the tank.

RickyDimon , 4/4/08 8:30 PM


Nice job Rafa I knew you could do it!

RafaNadalGirl20 , 4/4/08 11:21 PM



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