Hi, Tribe! Semifinals day! Pete is still on vacation (until Monday 20th August), and in his absence, this is the place to discuss the tennis matches being played today. The Order of Play for the men's Masters Series tournament in Cincinnati is here, and the schedule for the ladies in Toronto can be found on this link.
The first semifinal in Cincy involves current world number one, Roger Federer, versus the former world number one, Lleyton Hewitt. Their current head-to-head is 12-7 in favour of Federer, and he has won their last 10 encounters, from 2004 to the present time, including last week's quarterfinal in Montreal, 6-3, 6-4. It would, therefore, be an upset of major proportions if Hewitt emerges the victor from today's match; in only three of their past ten meetings has Hewitt managed to take a set, and two of those were in five-setters.
The night session in Cincy features the currently-less-than-obscure Nikolay Davydenko versus James Blake. Their career head-to-head is 5-0 in favour of Blake. All of their meetings so far have been on hard courts or fast indoor carpet. Most recently, they played at the Tennis Masters Cup in Shanghai, on Taraflex carpet - the score was 2-6, 6-4, 7-5 in favour of Blake. My memory of that match, which shows in the score, is indeed that Blake initially struggled to find form and momentum before emerging the victor. That same week, he also beat world number two, Rafael Nadal, and his week culminated in a final against Roger Federer. It would appear that a repeat is the likeliest outcome tomorrow.
In Toronto, world number one Justine Henin plays China's Zi Yan, the world number 169, who, as a qualifier, eliminated Ana Ivanovic, last week's winner in LA, earlier in the week. The two have never met before. In the other semifinal, Jelena Jankovic plays Tatiana Golovin. The latter (as Kamakshi Tandon has described elsewhere on tennis.com) is being coached by Mats Wilander. I recommend Kamakshi's account to anyone who hasn't seen it so far. The head-to-head between Jankovic and Golovin is 1-1. Both encounters have been on hard courts, and have gone to three sets, but they have not played since meeting in Seoul in 2005, a match that Jankovic won.
As always, I wish everyone in TW an enjoyable day watching tennis. I'll be watching myself, and look forward to all of the discussions and analysis to come.
-- Rosangel