Ivan Dodig continued his impressive run of results at the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell, ousting Feliciano Lopez in three sets to advance to the semifinals. Dodig, from Croatia, is the last man standing at the tournament who isn’t from Spain.
Dodig will meet Rafael Nadal in the semifinals after his third consecutive quality win in this ATP World Tour 500 tournament. He beat #3 seed Robin Soderling and #15 seed Milos Raonic in the second and third rounds respectively. The Croat continued his confident and inspired play by jumping on Lopez with an early break and holding his own serve easily throughout the opening set, which he won 6-4. His level of play dipped a bit in the second set as Lopez raced out to a 3-0 lead and took the set comfortably, 6-2. For the second day in a row, however, Dodig answered the call in a tight third set. Both players were taking care of their own serves until Dodig, who upped his record to 15-7 in 2011, came through with the key break of serve in the 9th game to take a 5-4 advantage, and secured the opportunity to serve for his first-ever berth into an ATP 500 semifinal. A highly partisan Spanish crowd, hoping for an all-Spanish final four, was no deterrent for Dodig, who comfortably finished the match with a fist pump to set up his date with the world’s top-ranked player on Saturday.
Earlier on an overcast and at times rainy afternoon on the clay courts of the Real Club de Tenis, Nadal and fellow Spaniards David Ferrer and Nicolas Almagro won their quarterfinal matches in straight sets. Nadal made Frenchman Gael Monfils, a dangerous player with a top 10 pedigree, look like a weekend hacker with a lethal combination of blistering groundstrokes and clever angles. Nadal’s stellar play reduced Monfils to chuckles on several occasions, looking skyward for answers that didn’t exist. Nadal was first on court Friday afternoon, and wrapped up his match before the rains arrived and delayed play for more than an hour.
When the rain stopped, Ferrer took the court to face Austrian Jurgen Melzer for the second time in as many weeks. Ferrer beat Melzer last week in the semifinals at Monte Carlo, and the Austrian was again no match for Ferrer’s consistency, though at times Melzer appeared to be his own worst enemy.
On serve at 1-1 in the first set and Melzer leading 15-30, he hit a backhand that clipped the line and skidded over the racket of Ferrer. The ball was called out and then immediately corrected by the linesman, but the umpire, much to Melzer’s disappointment, ruled the point to be replayed. Melzer argued with the umpire throughout the next two games, which only served to alienate and vocalize an already pro-Ferrer crowd. Instead of 15-40 and two break points to take an early advantage in the opening set, Ferrer held serve and responded by breaking Melzer and cruising to a 4-1 lead.
There was, however, a scary moment for Ferrer and his fans when he tweaked his left knee rushing the net to play a short ball at the beginning of the second set. The trainer was on court for a full medical timeout with Ferrer trailing 1-2. The Spaniard returned with his knee taped up, and seemed to suffer no obvious negative effects for the duration of the match, though Melzer tried unsuccessfully to take advantage of the injury by moving Ferrer from side to side and up and back on the court.
Ferrer found himself in a spot of trouble at 3-3, down break point, but he came up with a beautiful lunging backhand drop volley to save the point and, eventually, the game. That was the last whimper from Melzer, who didn’t win another game as Ferrer served out the match for a 6-3 6-3 victory and a date in the semifinals.
Almagro, who secured a spot in the top 10 for the first time with his 3rd round win over Nikolay Davydenko, cruised into the semifinals with a straight set triumph over yet another Spaniard, Juan Carlos Ferrero. Ferrero, the former #1 player in the world, playing in his first tournament since last year’s US Open, seemed to be fatigued as the match progressed. Almagro, though himself a bit inconsistent on serve at times, continued his solid play on clay in 2011. Almagro won two events earlier this year in South America and was a finalist in Acapulco, where he lost to Ferrer in three sets. Those two will square off in a rematch of the Acapulco final Saturday with a berth in the final on the line.
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