FRIDAY, MAY 15 – Rafael Nadal and Novak
Djokovic will face off for the No. 2 ranking in Hamburg after
the Serb dumped Albert Montanes 6-2, 6-3 and Nadal blew out his good
buddy, fellow Mallorcan Carlos Moya 6-1, 6-3.
No. 1 Roger Federer also cruised with a 6-3, 6-3 win
over Fernando Verdasco and will face Italy's Andreas Seppi,
who put down German Nicolas Kiefer 6-3, 5-7, 7-5 in three hours.
Nadal has won all three of his and Djokovic’s previous matches
on clay, including in the '07 Roland Garros semis. Djokovic said he
wouldn’t
think what’s at stake. "I'll just play the match as any
other one and try to stay focused.” Nadal, who has spent a record
147 weeks ranked No. 2, added. "If you want, it's a little bit
more important than a normal Masters semi, but it's not as special
as if you were playing for the No. 1.”
Rome lost the Williamses, as sister stopper Jelena Jankovic took
out Venus 5-7, 6-2, 6-3, while Serena pulled out with a back injury prior
to her quarterfinal with French teen Alize Cornet. Serena
said the injury won’t affect her Roland Garros performance, but
it may be too soon to tell. Anna Chakvetadze is having
her best tournament in three months, scoring a 6-2, 3-6, 6-1 win over
Bulgarian qualifier Tsvetana Pironkova.
Defending champ Jankovic will face Maria
Sharapova in the semis. "She was up 2-0 in the third set and I never gave up,"
Jankovic said. "I just wanted to play one point at a time and just
be strong out there, and I did it somehow. I was thinking about my game,
how I'm feeling, and what I have to do in order to win."
FROM THURSDAY: Surprise, surprise! Take a good look at the official WTA
web site photo gallery of the now infamous “Superhero”
shoot in Rome and guess who isn’t included in the numerous shots?
That would new No. 1 Sharapova, who had torched
the tour prior to the shoot for asking for too much of her time prior
to Tier One event. Interestingly, Getty Images has four Sharapova shots
in up on their site of the Russian arriving and sitting in a car during
a commercial, but the WTA chose not to select any those, even though nearly
every other player of note has a picture up. Bad blood? Could be.
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