OK so now I'm onto part two of my posts on the Sony Open Tennis tournament from Crandon Park in Miami, where the top men's and ladies players in the world compete for the right to win that rather nice glass trophy (better looking than the Indian Wells one at any rate!).
And to start with the usual, let's have a look at the ladies matches, starting with a catch on the remaining ladies 4th round matches. Starting with Roberta Vinci, the Italian No.2 who battled it out hard against the Carla Suarez Navarro in the 3rd round, gaining her first ever win over the Spaniard in 3 sets, and Vinci later went on to beat Alize Cornet in another tight battle winning in 2-6, 6-4, 6-4. Sara Errani, Vinci's compatriot and doubles partner also had to fight past Ana Ivanovic as she came from a set down to beat the saucy Serb in 1-6, 6-4, 6-2. And Jelena Jankovic, who has recently made a return to form, winning her first title in nearly three years back in February in Bogota, also powered her way past Sorana Cirstea with a 6-0, 6-4 win. And finally Maria Sharapova eased her way past Klara Zakopalova with another routine straight sets win of 6-2, 6-2.
As for the quarter finals ladies matches, so far we have had Serena Williams take on Li Na, which turned out to be a bit of a dramatic one, as Serena had to take a medical timeout for her leg in the 2nd set. Serena's usually impeccable serve faltered badly here and allowed Li Na who went a set and a break down in the 2nd set to break back, and move ahead in the match to 5-3. However Serena wasn't finished as she went on to break back, and the set was pushed to a tiebreak, which featured some great points, but it was Serena who shut down Li Na with a winner to end the match, sealing her place in the semis in 6-3, 7-6(5). This match just goes to show that even when she is injured, there is no one more dangerous on a tennis court than Serena Williams, and in this match she used her fighting spirit to come through, but you always know one way or another she will get it done. So that's Serena to be the first to make it through to the semis, next up will be Angieszka Radwanksa who takes on Kirsten Flipkens of Belgium for a place in the semis with Serena.
Now for the men's fourth round matches so far, starting with David Ferrer who faced Kei Nishikori, and the two men so far have shared their head to head 2-2 coming into this match. But it was Ferrer who took command of the match and he wasted little time in breaking Nishikori and putting him away in just 81 minutes, winning in 6-4, 6-2. Ferrer so far is looking in really good form in Miami, and he has gone a long way in making up for his 2nd round loss in Indian Wells two weeks ago, and if he carries on this route he is sure to face Novak Djokovic in the semis, which as I said in my last post that should hopefully be a good one. Next up Ferrer will face Jurgen Melzer in the quarter finals for a place in the semis where he may very well have a showdown with Novak Djokovic.
Tomas Berdych also wasted very little time in getting past the big yank, Sam Querrey as he dismissed him cruising to a 6-1, 6-1 victory. Berdych did well to survive his match against Alejandro Falla who very nearly took Berdych out in the 3rd round, so this was quite a turnaround in the 4th round, which will set up a quarter final clash with Richard Gasquet. This promises to be quite a good match as well, as Gasquet took on Nicolas Almagaro in a pitch (or court) battle where he edged the Spaniard with a 6-7, 7-5, 7-6 result. The next matches up will be between Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Marin Cilic, and Janko Tipsarevic and Gilles Simon.
And finally we get to Andy Murray who took on the Italian player, Andreas Seppi, who has shown good form in Miami. However Seppi proved to be no threat to Andy as the Scot simply had too much for the Italian, and Andy came out firing well, and (finally) getting that first serve percentage up, he broke Seppi twice to swiftly take the first set. In the 2nd set Seppi did offer more resistance and played better and he even rattled Andy 4-3, as he took Andy to 0-30 on his serve, but it was short lived as Andy held serve afterwards, he then went on to break Seppi himself. And despite a last ropey service game, facing break points, Andy went on to hold his nerve and seal his place in the last eight, winning the match in 6-2, 6-4. This was a big improvement from Andy's performance against Dimitrov the night before, as this time Andy started strong and served well throughout most of the match, despite one or two loose forehands and the odd double fault, he came through the match fairly untroubled. Seppi did show signs of promise in the 2nd set but in the end he was just a bit too passive and wasn't able to take his chances when he could against Andy.
So this sets up a quarter final clash for Andy with Marin Cilic, who defeated Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in 7-5, 7-6(4). This could be quite a tough match, but Andy thankfully leads their head to head 7-1, which puts the odds well in his favour, and although he was upset by Del Potro in the quarter finals of Indian Wells, I hopefully don't see this happening here. And hopefully from here, Andy can build on his performance so far, as he is starting to look more comfortable out on the courts, which he should do in Miami since he practices there for about three months out of the year.
And to make things even more interesting, Novak Djokovic suffered a big upset in his 4th round match against Tommy Haas, who stunned the world no.1 by playing a great match, using his tactics and tenacity to outplay the Serb (now there's something you don't hear often) and claim a big scalp winning in 6-2, 6-4. Well it has to be said I certainly wasn't expecting this result as I thought that Djokovic winning the match would be a dead cert, however I was proven wrong, and this is quite a result for Haas, who is on the verge of turning 35, and despite that he is playing some of the best tennis of his career just now, so he will be hard to stop on the basis of this. But with Djokovic out of the picture, this now leaves Andy Murray as the top seed, and he has an excellent chance to win not only the title but grab the World No.2 ranking from Federer. However with Cilic up next, and Berdych being a strong possbility for the semis, it will still be a very tough passage for him before he reaches the final, but if he can make the final I'm sure he stands a great chance of winning and taking the No.2 spot. So its going to be quite exciting to see how it all pans out and let's hope Andy can pull it off.
So that's all for now, more will follow once the remaining quarter final matches are played oot.
Till then bye for now!
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