Two players who have defied the odds this week will face off for the BA-CA Tennis Trophy title in Vienna, as the championship final of the International Series Gold tournament takes place on Sunday afternoon.
Novak Djokovic and Stanislas Wawrinka have met three times before on the ATP circuit, with Wawrinka prevailing on two of those occasions. Their first meeting came in the final of Umag last summer, where the two went to a first set tie-break before Djokovic retired with respiratory problems, giving Wawrinka the title. The Serb won their next meeting in Davis Cup play in September, coming back from two-sets-to-one down to win in five sets. But the Swiss retaliated a few weeks later at this very event, winning in straight sets.
Djokovic is playing his seventh ATP final of 2007, going 4-2 in his first six. He has won titles at Adelaide, AMS Miami, Estoril and AMS Canada and has finished runner-up at AMS Indian Wells (to Rafael Nadal) and the US Open (to Roger Federer). His titles in Miami and Montreal were his career-first ATP Masters Series shields, and his run to the US Open final was his career-first Grand Slam final appearance.
Djokovic is playing in his 10th career ATP final, going 6-3 in his first nine. He has only played one final on indoor hard before, capturing the Metz title almost exactly a year ago (beating Jurgen Melzer in the final).
Djokovic’s four wins this week (which include a 6-3, 5-7, 7-6(2) win over No. 7 seed Juan Ignacio Chela in the quarterfinals, where he saved two match points serving at 4-5, 15-40 in the third set) bring his career Vienna record to 5-1, having made a second round exit last year (falling to Wawrinka, as mentioned).
Wawrinka is playing his second ATP final of 2007, finishing runner-up in his first at Stuttgart (to Nadal).
Wawrinka is playing in his fourth career ATP final, going 1-2 in his first three, all of which came on clay (finishing runner-up to Gaston Gaudio at Gstaad in 2005, winning Umag in 2006 and then again finishing runner-up at Stuttgart this year). On Sunday he will play his first career ATP final on indoor hardcourts.
Wawrinka’s four wins this week (the first three of which came in three sets - including victories over David Nalbandian and Feliciano Lopez - and his semifinal win coming in straight sets over Juan Carlos Ferrero, whom he had never beaten in three previous encounters) bring his career Vienna record to 6-2, which also includes a quarterfinal finish last year and a first round loss in 2005 (falling to Ferrero in three sets).
After winning three matches in his first 11 events of the year, Wawrinka has won 15 in his last eight events.
The Swiss is 4-12 lifetime against Top 10 players, notching three of those wins last year (one over David Ferrer at Zagreb and two over David Nalbandian, at Cincinnati and Basel) and one more this year (over Tommy Robredo at New Haven). He is 0-2 against the world’s Top 10 on indoor hardcourts, however.
Fourth seeds Maruisz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski play Tomas Behrend and Christopher Kas in the doubles final. Fyrstenberg and Matkowski have already captured five titles together, three coming at Sopot (2003, 2005, 2007), one at Costa do Sauipe (2004) and one at Bucharest (2006). They are 5-8 as a team in ATP finals, two of their runner-up finishes coming in the last few months, at New Haven and Metz. All five of the titles they have won as a team came on clay, so they are seeking their first hardcourt trophy. Behrend and Kas have won six doubles titles together on the Challenger circuit (including four this season) but their biggest achievement at the ATP level was reaching the final of the International Series Gold event in Kitzbuehel this year (in their first and so far only ATP final, they fell to Luis Horna and Potito Starace). (ATP Digital Services)
