Nishikori, Lopez to Meet in Memphis final, Bryans and Blake/Sock to Contest Doubles Final
Kei Nishikori advanced to the Memphis final by retirement over Marinko Matosevic after winning the 1st set 6-4 today. He will take on Feliciano Lopez, who had a harder time against Denis Istomin, winning 6-2 3-6 6-3 in a rollercoaster match where both players had streaks of good play followed by ambivalence. Both Nishikori and Lopez will be vying for their 3rd career ATP titles.
In the doubles, the Bryans will take on Blake/Sock in an all American showdown, as Blake/Sock won 2-6 6-4 12-10 over Kubot/Nestor.
As for picks, I’ll go with Nishikori and the Bryans tomorrow as Memphis wraps up its 2013 edition.
Lleyton Hewitt, Heather Watson and Milos Raonic will be among the stars of today’s action at the Racquet Club of Memphis. Hewitt starts things off in the morning on stadium against Yen-Hsun Lu. Watson is 2nd up on Court 1 against Hlavackova and Raonic will be in the stadium night cap against Jack Sock.
The other matches on Stadium will be: Marina Erakovic against Sofia Arvidsson in 2nd round WTA singles, Tommy Haas vs. Evgeny Donskoy in 1st round ATP singles and Alexandr Dolgopolov vs. Bjorn Phau in 1st round ATP singles. The Bryans will take on Farah/Haas in night session men’s doubles.
On Court 1, Flipkens will play Tsurenko, Donald Young will play Malisse and Lisicki will play Czink. The doubles matches on Court 1 will be Quisner against Kubot/Nestor, Dabrowski/Kudryavtseva against Larsson/Arvidsson and Peya/Soares against the Harrison brothers.
On Grandstand, Feurstein will play Voegle, Duval will play Mladenovic, Go Soeda will play Marinko Matosevic and Dekmeijere/Moulton-Levy will play Muguruza/Espinosa.
Sizzling Sijsling Cool Under Pressure, Lisicki Knocks Out Keys
Here is your recap of all the goings on Tuesday at the Racquet club of Memphis.
It’s Nice to be Sijs
Igor Sijsling got things started off right and continued his streak of strong play, knocking out Jurgen Melzer 6-4 7-6. Sijsling notched an early break of serve in the 1st set and then proceeded to keep Melzer moving and off balance, which created a host of groundstroke errors for the Austrian and resulted in him dropping the 1st set. In the 2nd, Melzer did his best to get fired up and pushed hard at multiple points to earn various break point chances. When the pressure was on Sijsling to keep his serve, he delivered, knocking aces and putting the ball on the lines with both his backhand and forehand. He also did some great volleying at the net.
Sijsling was pushed hard at times but never faltered and he kept Melzer scrambling, and though Jurgen scrambled and came up with some epic defense to offense shots and showed great court coverage from behind the baseline up to the net, Sijsling’s power was simply too much for him. When it came to the 2nd set tiebreak, 1 minibreak handed Sijsling the win. Melzer himself even stated after the match that Sijsling was simply too strong, and he felt he had played a good match besides not serving as he would like. In short, both guys would have beaten a lot of players today, but only 1 could be the victor.
After that match, Sabine Lisicki kept Madison Keys at bay 7-5 6-3. Lisicki broke Keys at the end of a tight first set and then traded breaks in the 2nd, but she seemed to make easy work of Keys 2nd serve, creeping up the baseline to return it and serving well enough to win.
James Blake won a back and forth, wild momentum swing match with Flo Mo, Florian Mayer, 4-6 6-3 6-2. Blake won the first 3 games of the match at love but then proceeded to unravel and let Mayer, who looked a bit dazed at the start, to roar back and roll off the next 5 games, eventually taking the 1st set. In the 2nd they played close for a while, but Blake again regained the momentum and rolled at the end of the 2nd which gave him enough momentum and energy in the 3rd to take it. Blake advanced to the next round to smatterings to cheers from the spectators who were strongly in his corner.
In other men’s singles action, John Isner continues to struggle and fell to Denis Istomin 6-4 6-3 in a match where he did nothing to his opponents serve. Sam Querrey calmly routined Alejandro Falla once again, 6-3 6-3, holding serve pretty easily and getting breaks when needed them. Michael Russell got past a flustered Alex Bogomolov 6-2 6-4. Feliciano Lopez came back to take out Benjamin Becker 4-6 6-3 6-4. In the nightcap, Kei Nishikori bested Ilya Marchenko by a count of 6-4, 7-5.
In men’s doubles, Butorac/Hanley defeated Huey/Inglot, 6-4, 7-5, Cilic/Sa beat Dodig/Melo in a very tight match 7-6 5-7 11-9 and Gonzalez/Lipsky got past Matosevic/Malisse 6-4 6-3, in a match where Matosevic was quite angry.
In women’s singles, Jamie Hampton crushed Coco Vandeweghe 6-3 6-0, Claire Feurstein of France was strong and confident with a 6-4 6-3 win over Lucie Hradecka, Andrea Hlavackova worked past Melanie Oudin 6-4 3-6 6-3 and Magdalena Rybarikova won 7-6 6-2 over Lauren Davis.
In women’s doubles, Mladenovic/Voskoboeva won 6-3 6-2 over Scheepers/Peer, Arvidsson/Larsson beat Falconi/Sanchez 6-2 6-4 and Muguruza/Soler-Espinosa beat Hibberd/Welcher 7-6 7-6.
