World No. 2 Roger Federer comfortably beat Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis 6-4, 6-3 on Saturday to set up a meeting with American Mardy Fish in the final of the Cincinnati Masters.
Fish had earlier pulled off a surprise turnaround win over fellow American Andy Roddick to claim a 4-6, 7-6, 6-1 victory and advance to his third Masters series final.
Federer had had an easy route to the last four after a bye, a retirement and a walkover allowed him into the last eight without a full set of tennis.
However, the Swiss, the defending champion and a finalist in Toronto last week, looked in good form, playing with the ease and flow for which he is noted, and at the perfect time in his preparation for the US Open.
“I didn’t get broken today, so that was a first in this Northern American tour for me. It came at the right time,” Federer told reporters. “I thought I played a good match. I was able to mix up my serve well and always kept him off balance. So it kind of worked for me.”
Federer’s serve was particularly impressive, winning 90 percent of his first service points, which is exactly the part of the game that Fish has been thriving upon this week — setting up a fascinating final.
The Swiss has met Fish six times, with the American winning just once, in their most recent meeting in Indian Wells in 2008.
“I thought he came out and played the perfect match really. Yeah, it was a good match from his side. I never really got into the match,” Federer said of their last encounter. “He seems like he’s playing well and he must be confident. I’m ready for that. We’ll see how it goes tomorrow.”
Fish had been on the verge of defeat against Roddick before a short rain-break offered him a glimmer of hope.
Ninth-seed Roddick had served for the match at 5-3 up in the second set before Fish’s unlikely comeback began.
The game had been tight in the first set until a 40 minute rain-break disrupted proceedings and on the return to the court Roddick broke and took the set.
The big-serving Roddick, who will re-enter the top 10 in the world rankings next week, then put himself in a powerful position by grabbing a 5-2 lead in the second.
With Fish about to serve to stay in the match, rain returned, albeit only for 10 minutes, but once again the stoppage had an impact when they resumed.
Fish held serve, then broke Roddick and pushed the set to a tiebreak, which he won in style against a floundering opponent.
■MONTREAL CUP
REUTERS, MONTREAL, CANADA
The Montreal Cup was headed toward a rare finish today after persistent rain on Saturday allowed only 10 minutes of the semi-final between Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki and Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova to be played.
After six hours of delays, tournament officials finally threw in the soggy towel and rescheduled the semi-finals for early yesterday followed by the final at 1500 EST.
However, with the forecast predicting even heavier rain yesterday, tournament director Eugene Lapierre admitted to the possibility of a finish today.
“Radar is not so good, it says 100 percent chance of rain, but it doesn’t mean it is going to rain the whole day,” Lapierre said. “I’ve rarely seen days when we could play only two games, I would be very surprised to see that again.”
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