The 250ATP tournament in Winston-Salem has been one of the most prestigious of the season with lots of top10 players competing for the title.
The Battle of Towers
Eventually it is going to be a boom boom final between two “tower-players”. From one side we have 6’9” (205cm) John Isner, from another the much shorter (???) Czech Tomas Berdych 6’5” (195cm) that defeated 6’6” (198cm) Sam Querrey. We understand that there was no place here for Oliver Rochus (the shortest player on tour – 5’6” – 166cm).
Isner – Tsonga 6-4, 3-6, 7-6(3)
(Very) Big Johny was very happy to win this 2h and 12minutes match. Once again it was at the tie-break (a real speciality of the American). Isner blasted a whopping 24 aces in 15 games (1.6 aces per game!) with a very high percentage of his first serves in (64%), Tsonga was a hero to convert 1 out of 3 break points conceded and to defend 9 out of 10. But eventually he fell.
“I’m very, very happy to be back in the final,” said Isner. “I don’t like getting to Grand Slams early. If I’m playing the week before, I want to do as well as I can. I’m playing the final match, so I’m very satisfied with that. I’m looking to defend my title. I did it this year in Newport, so maybe I can pull it off again.”
Berdych – Querrey 6-4 6-3
Easy stuff for Tomas in this 1h and 39minutes match. He found himself a bit in trouble when he double falted in the second set to go 2-3 and a break down. Then the Czech won 4 straight games to win the match. Querrey had a very weird service game. He blasted a whopping 18 aces in 9 service games (2 aces a game is not that bad!), but he was pretty lousy with his sercond serve to win only 28% of them (11 out of 40). This means that besides his incredible ace score, he had to confront 18 break points (an average of 2 per game) to save 13 of them. Berdych was also not really good at defending his break points (only 1 out of 4).
“I don’t think I necessarily needed to break him five times, but on the other hand, I lost my serve a couple of times. I was trying to get my chances,” Berdych said. “In the first set, I had more than 10 break points. Probably the one thing I was not happy with was my serve in the second set. I lost quite an easy game. I was playing better on the tough points and that was the decider today.”
Berdych will be exhausted for the US Open…
Head to Head
2-1 for Berdych, 1-0 for Isner on hard court. There is no clear favourite here.
