World No. 1 Novak Djokovic is one set from reaching his third Mutua Madrid Open final after taking a 7-6(2) lead against fifth seed Dominic Thiem on Saturday.
The two-time Madrid champion is trying to tie Rafael Nadal's record of 33 ATP Masters 1000 titles. When he has won a semi-final at the Caja Magica (2011 and 2016), Djokovic has gone on to lift the trophy.
Early on, Thiem appeared to be riding the momentum from his thrilling quarter-final victory against Roger Federer, using his power to overwhelm Djokovic for an early break. But the top seed remained calm and raised his level to match Thiem's push, showing incredible defence to earn his first break point. Djokovic didn't waste the opportunity, as Thiem missed an inside-in forehand from a tough position to give back the break.
Thiem earned two more opportunities to break Djokovic at 4-4, and a second time violation assessed to the Serbian forced Djokovic to defend the first of those chances on his second serve. But the top seed again raised his level to hold serve. And in the eventual tie-break, Djokovic's defence was too strong, forcing Thiem into unforced errors.
Djokovic leads the pair’s FedEx ATP Head2Head series 5-2, but Thiem has won their previous two meetings, which both came on clay (2017 Roland Garros and 2018 Monte-Carlo).
Did You Know?
This is the first tournament of 2019 in which that has four Top 10 semi-finalists. The last time this occurred in Madrid was in 2016 with No. 1 Djokovic, No. 2 Andy Murray, No. 5 Nadal and No. 6 Kei Nishikori.
from Tennis - ATP World Tour http://bit.ly/2Q1kSGH
No comments:
Post a Comment