Tennis: Abrams picks the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters 1000 Saturday semifinals -- Nadal v Fognini, Medvedev v Lajovic

Monte Carlo Masters 1000
Saturday, April 20, 2019
Semifinals

The Masters 1000 tournament in Monte Carlo, Monaco is coming to a climax with the semis today, and top seeded and world’s No. 1 ranked player, Novak Djokovic again looking in from the outside just as he did at Indian Wells and Miami. With Djokovic gone, Rafa Nadal is the prohibitive favorite to walk away with this title, but realistically he was always the favorite since this tournament, like the next four, are all played on red clay, Rafa’s home. In fact, I’m pretty sure that when Rafa hibernates for the winter, he sleeps in his den made of red clay.

In the quarters, Russian Daniil Medvedev made The Joker look like an average Tour player, and seemed to have the match in hand pretty much from beginning to end. After winning the first set 6-3, Medvedev let down a little bit and allowed Djokovic to roar back and take the second set, but the third was all Medvedev’s. Djokovic never looked like the champion that he is, seemingly content to let Medvedev not only dictate play, but show more fight and force of will. And when that happens in Tour events, the more determined player usually wins.

Argentine Guido Pella was determined as hell against Nadal in one of the other quarters, and pushed Rafa into a first set tiebreaker. Had Pella closed out the first set when he could, this match could have been an entirely different story, but once Rafa got his teeth stuck in Pella’s shorts, the end was inevitable. Pella was able to win only one point in the breaker and was lucky to get the three games he got in the second set. After watching the first two seeds play, the noticeable difference was that one of them let his game do the talking (which just wasn’t enough) and the other fought like a pit bull in a contest for his life. Guess which one was Nadal.

Borna Coric was dominating Italian Fabio Fognini so much that it appeared that, at 6-1, 1-0, Fognini was ready to throw in the towel in their quarterfinal matchup. He had a second visit from the physio, they wrapped his right arm with more tape, and he stumbled out to take his beating. But a funny thing happened on the way to that beating: the Italian started to play truly inspired tennis, and proceeded to turn the match in a 180-degree direction. Fognini started to hit delicate backhand drop shots for winners. He started to haul off and crush forehands in every direction except long and wide. And he showed confidence and swagger just at the time that it would matter. The ship was turned, and it was rolling with it’s own momentum until Fognini raised both his hands in triumph, accepted the crowd’s adulation, and shook hands with the slightly shell-shocked Coric, as he set up an enticing semi-final matchup with Nadal.

In the fourth quarterfinal, Dusan Lajovic continued his inspired play and took out qualifier Lorenzo Sonego in straight sets. Lajovic, thus, became the only Serb left in the semis (who would have thought it would be Lajovic and not Djokovic?) after taking out world No. 5 Dominic Thiem and then Sonego. Lajovic has thus guaranteed himself at least 245,000 Euros and 360 ranking points which will raise the 48th ranked Serbian above his all-time high ranking of No. 42 and insure that he will make all the main draws up until next year at this time. Will he beat Medvedev and march into the finals? Look below.

Quick Picks:

Daniil Medvedev over Dusan Lajovic
Medvedev has too much game for Lajovic and will ruin Lajovic’s great week while he moves into the finals.

Rafa Nadal over Fabio Fognini
Even if Fognini plays tennis with the strength of Sparta, the patience of Job, and the inspiration of The Pope, Nadal will win this match. Unless his knees give out.