Rafael Nadal reached the final of the Shanghai Masters when Feliciano Lopez retired yesterday, the second evening in a row the tp>
World No. 2 Nadal moved into the semi-finals of the Shanghai Masters on Friday when Ivan Ljubicic became the eighth player to retire from the tournament.
The Spanish top seed had just evened the match up at 3-6, 6-3 when 30-year-old Ljubicic decided his left hip could no longer take the strain of the tight contest.
PHOTO: AFP
Yesterday Nadal was coasting at 6-1, 3-0 when his compatriot Lopez, who had a foot injury, became the ninth player to fail to finish a match.
The Australian Open champion will face Nikolay Davydenko in the final after the Russian sprang an upset on second seed Novak Djokovic with a 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 (7/1) victory.
Sixth seed Davydenko lost twice to Djokovic at the Masters Cup last season, the second in the final, but was an altogether different proposition this year.
PHOTO: AFP
The first set was a tight affair mostly contested from the baseline and it went with serve until the 10th game, when a string of poor first serves combined with four unforced errors gifted a 1-0 lead to Djokovic.
Davydenko mixed things up more in the second set and his hustling earned him a break, then two set points, only for Djokovic to save them with a glorious whipped backhand and an ace.
The world No. 8 was not to be denied, however, and he evened up the match by serving out to love, winning the set with his fourth ace.
The Russian kept up his pressure on his opponent’s serve in the decider without ever making the breakthrough, Djokovic hanging on to save for 3-2 after a marathon 10-minute game.
A brilliant lob at full stretch gave Djokovic a 6-5 lead, but Davydenko raced through his next service and was 5-0 up in the tie-break before his opponent registered a point.
Davydenko had the whiff of an upset in his nostrils by now and he stood firm to reach his fourth final of the year with a crushing forehand winner.
■JAPAN OPEN
AP, OSAKA, JAPAN
Third-seeded Samantha Stosur of Australia upset defending champion Caroline Wozniacki 6-0, 4-6, 6-4 yesterday to advance to the final of the Japan Open.
Stosur, who had 12 aces, broke the top-seeded Dane to go up 5-4 in the final set and then held serve to defeat the US Open finalist in 1 hour, 45 minutes at Utsubo Tennis Center.
Stosur will face fourth-seeded Francesca Schiavone of Italy in today’s final. Schiavone needed just 59 minutes for a 6-2, 6-1 win over India’s Sania Mirza.
Stosur had lost to Wozniacki in two previous meetings this year, but improved to 2-2 against the sixth-ranked player.
The Australian, despite being 15th in the world rankings, is still looking for her first WTA singles title, having lost all five of her previous finals.
Schiavone broke Mirza four times and never faced a break point to improve to 3-0 against the unseeded Indian.
Like Stosur, Schiavone has an unenviable record in tournament finals, standing at 1-9. The sole win came at the Gastein Ladies event in Austria in 2007.
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