The world’s Top 4 were projected to fill the semifinal spots but only one has actually made it that far, and he is one of four competing for berths in the final on Friday at the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships.
The first singles semifinal pits No. 5 seed Nikolay Davydenko against unseeded Feliciano Lopez.
Davydenko is playing in his second semifinal in four ATP main draws this year, his first coming at Doha (falling to Andy Murray). In his other two main draws, he reached the fourth round at the Australian Open (falling to Mikhail Youzhny) and the second round at Rotterdam (falling to Michael Llodra).
Davydenko is playing in his 34th career ATP singles semifinal, going 14-19 in his first 33 (which includes 8-8 on clay courts, 3-0 on carpet and 3-11 on hard). But he is only 1-7 in semifinals since the beginning of the 2007 season, going on to win the title at Moscow last fall but falling at this stage at seven tournaments (Doha, Rotterdam, AMS Rome, Roland Garros, AMS Cincinnati and US Open in 2007 and Doha in 2008).
Davydenko is now 6-4 in Dubai, his best previous run being a quarterfinal finish in 2005 (falling to Andre Agassi); he fell in the second round in 2007 and in the first round in 2004 and 2006, and is now in his first semifinal here on the strength of three straight-set wins this week (all against unseeded players).
Lopez fell early in his first four ATP main draws this year, in the second round of the Australian Open and first round at Sydney, Marseille and Rotterdam. Coupled with back-to-back first round exits at the end of 2007 (AMS Paris, Basel), he was 1-6 in his last six events coming into Doha. Before that stretch, he had reached three consecutive quarterfinals last October at Tokyo, Vienna and at the AMS event in Madrid.
Lopez will be playing his 10th career ATP singles semifinal, going 4-5 in his first nine (which includes 1-4 on clay courts and 3-1 on hard). He has gone on to win one title and finish runner-up three times.
Lopez is now 10-4 in Dubai, his best previous runs coming in his first two attempts, in 2003 (reaching the quarterfinals, falling to Tommy Robredo) and 2004 (reaching the final before falling to Roger Federer); he fell in the second round in 2005 (to Andre Agassi) and first round in 2006 (to Tim Henman) and is now in the semifinals again (beating No. 8 seed Tomas Berdych and No. 4 seed David Ferrer en route).
Lopez is 5-19 against Top 5 players, the wins being at 2002 Hong Kong (d. No. 4 Safin), 2005 Wimbledon (d. No. 5 Safin), 2006 Gstaad (d. No. 4 Ljubicic), 2006 US Open (d. No. 3 Ljubicic) and right here in Dubai this week (d. No.4 Ferrer); those wins could give him some confidence against current No. 5 Davydenko.
The second singles semifinal pits No. 3 seed Novak Djokovic against No. 6 seed Andy Roddick.
Djokovic is playing in his just his third ATP main draw of the year, his first coming at the Australian Open (where he beat Roger Federer en route to his career-first Grand Slam title) and his second coming a few weeks ago at Marseille (where he fell in the second round to Gilles Simon). He has improved to 11-2 on the season with three straight-set victories so far this week (all over unseeded players).
Djokovic will be playing in his 17th career ATP singles semifinal, going 11-5 in his first 16 (which includes 3-1 on clay, 0-1 on carpet, 0-1 on grass and 8-2 on hard). He reached his first four career ATP semifinals in 2006 (going 3-1 in those), 11 more in 2007 (7-4 in those) and one this year before Dubai (1-0 in that).
Djokovic is now 5-1 in Dubai, going 2-1 to reach the quarterfinals in his tournament debut here last year (falling to Roger Federer) and 3-0 this year to reach today’s semifinals (all over unseeded players).
Roddick is playing his fourth ATP main draw of the year, his best previous result being winning his 24th ATP singles title at San Jose; he was a quarterfinalist at Memphis last week (falling to Robin Soderling) and reached the third round at the Australian Open (falling to Philipp Kohlschreiber 8-6 in the fifth set). He hasn’t lost a set in three matches this week, including a quarterfinal upset of No. 2 seed Rafael Nadal.
Going into his quarterfinal match against Nadal, Roddick was 1-4 lifetime against World No. 2s (and is now 2-4); going into his semifinal match against Djokovic, he is 3-3 lifetime against World No. 3s. Roddick is playing in his 64th career ATP singles semifinal, going 37-26 in his first 63 (58.7%); but without his combined 11-13 semifinal record in Grand Slams, Tennis Masters Cup and AMS events, he is a more favorable 26-13 in International Series and International Series Gold events combined (66.7%). Roddick is now 3-0 lifetime in Dubai, as he is making his tournament debut here this year. (ATP Digital Services)
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