[14] Tomas Berdych (CZE) vs. [33] Feliciano Lopez (ESP)
They were tied at six wins each, so understandably today’s encounter had the potential to be a battle. Their two previous encounters on grass were won by Lopez; however, Berdych seemed headed to change that statistic today after he won the first set 7-6(4). Lopez has been struggling to find his top form in singles and has only made it to the quarterfinals of one tournament so far this season. Conversely, he has been playing extremely well in doubles and has made it to two finals and one semifinal. His opponent Berdych, once a long-standing member of the top ten, fell out of the top ten at the end of January and has continued to struggle to find consistency in his form.
Time is marching on for both players and dreams are perhaps slipping out of their grasp. The tendency is to panic and try drastic measures to hold on to those dreams, Berdych has made some changes in his coaching staff; however, there has been no significant improvement in his results and you can almost sense his anxiety building with each loss. While his results this season have not been that bad, they are not on par with previous years when he was in the top ten. Lopez seems to be rebounding as he gets to his first singles semifinal of the season. It will be interesting to see how both players progress as the season continues. Lopez won 6-7(4), 6-3, 6-4 and will face Mischa Zverev tomorrow.
The top four seeds, all big servers, have advanced to the semifinals.
[2] Alexander Zverev will have the unfortunate task of trying to derail [4] Gilles Muller and [1] Marin Cilic will face off against the big serving Croat, [3] Ivo Karlovic. Could we have both Zverev brothers playing in finals this weekend?
SOURCE OF IMAGE: Creative Commons (Getty Images)
