A round-up from the second day of the Mubadala World Tennis Championship in Abu Dhabi as Feliciano Lopez takes on Kevin Anderson in the 5th/6th place playoff before David Ferrer takes on Rafael Nadal, and Stan Wawrinka faces Milos Raonic in the two semi-finals.
ABU DHABI // Milos Raonic will meet Rafael Nadal in the final of the Mubadala World Tennis Championship after stunning reigning French Open champ Stan Wawrinka in straight sets on Friday night.
The Canadian, who has lost all four of his matches against Wawrinka on the ATP World Tour, was trailing 2-5 when the Swiss suffered a meltdown as he served for the opening set.
Raonic took advantage, winning five games on the trot to clinch the opening set 7-5 in 40 minutes. The world No 14 then broke Wawrinka in the seventh game of the second set to seize the initiative but the Swiss, after saving two match points in the ninth game, broke to level the scores at 5-5 and raise hopes of a third set.
Raonic, however, broke back immediately and then served out for the match on second attempt, completing the 7-5, 7-5 win in one hour and 30 minutes.
Nadal too strong for Ferrer
One the eve of his first match at the Mubadala World Tennis Championship here, Nadal, having recovered from the early woes of 2015 to finish the year at No 5 in the world, had confidently predicted he was going to be “very competitive” in 2016.
If his first match of the year, against world No 7 David Ferrer, is any indication, Nadal’s opponents beware.
Making his seventh appearance at the MWTC, the Spaniard looked in absolute control throughout the first set and, though there were a few jitters in the second, he completed victory in the semi-final duel in two hours and 23 minutes, winning 6-3, 6-7(4), 6-3.
Nadal needed only 34 minutes to wrap up the first set, against one of the most dogged opponents on the tour. He closed it with a blistering ace, an early break in the fourth game proving enough.
The 14-time grand slam winner then took charge of the second set with a break in the third game, but Ferrer clawed back to level the scores at 4-4, following a string of three consecutive break of serves, and then took the match into the third set after edging the tie-break 7-4 in a marathon 68-minute second set.
Nadal rediscovered his first set form early in the decider, breaking Ferrer in the second game and, though there was a trade of serves mid-set, he closed it with a blistering forehand on his first match point.
Nadal is through to the final of the MWTC for the first time since winning his second title in January 2011, and awaits the winner of the second semi-final between French Open champion Stan Wawrinka and Milos Raonic.
Late replacement Lopez defeats Anderson in 5th/6th playoff
Coming in as a late replacement for the injured Jo-Wilfried Tsonga on the second day of the Mubadala World Tennis Championship, Feliciano Lopez denied Kevin Anderson a consolation win on Friday afternoon, edging the big-serving South African 7-6(5), 7-6(3) in the playoff for fifth place.
Lopez, 34, bounced back from 1-4 in the first set tiebreak to clinch it 7-5, after an engrossing 50-minute duel. The duration of that first set was only four minutes less than the length of Tsonga’s entire match on Thursday — a 6-1, 6-1 drubbing by David Ferrer in 54 minutes.
The second set was also decided in the tie-break, with the Spaniard cruising to a 6-0 lead before eventually clinching it at 7-3. Anderson had earlier lost 6-3, 6-4 to Milos Raonic on the opening day of the tournament.
Lopez, ranked No 17 in the world following his quarter-final appearance at the US Open, was drafted in as a replacement for Tsonga after the Frenchman decided to pull out earlier in the morning with a right forearm injury.
Tsonga, 30, had played with a heavily bandaged arm against Ferrer on the opening day of the tournament, but he had denied any injury worries at his post-match press conference.
“I practiced a lot during the off-season and it just felt a little bit tight,” Tsonga said. “What I did was just a precaution.”
Ferrer, meanwhile, will meet his Spanish compatriot and 14-time grand slam champion Rafael Nadal in the first semi-final later in the evening.
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