Both the singles and doubles semi-final line up will be completed at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals at the o2 Arena on Friday as the group stages draw to a potentially thrilling conclusion.
Rafael Nadal booked his spot in the semi-final when he took Andy Murray to the cleaners on Wednesday and he faces an already eliminated David Ferrer in an all-Spanish battle in the afternoon while Andy Murray and Stan Wawrinka meet in a knockout match in the evening session. Three pairs will become two in the doubles.
Nadal has been looking better and better for a while now but he probably hasn’t looked as good as he did against Murray for quite a while and I’m sure he will go out in this match against Ferrer looking to improve again and maintain his growing confidence ahead of a potential semi-final clash with Novak Djokovic.
David Ferrer’s tournament has been one of what could have been. He was competitive in both sets against Andy Murray before dropping serve at the wrong time and then he fell apart when serving for the opening set against Stan Wawrinka. He hasn’t been that far away but a failure to play the big moments well have cost him.
Nadal has played all the moments well so far. I’m not going to take too much from his win over Wawrinka because the Swiss player was all over the shop but certainly Nadal’s win over Murray was so scintillating we would be foolish to ignore it.
I expect Nadal to win this and with Ferrer’s motivation levels low after a long season I’m expecting Nadal to cover a four game handicap as he did when these two met here back in 2013.
I’m already on Wawrinka outright so I’m not going to take him to beat Murray. In truth neither have played their best tennis in the tournament yet and the one who does here will win the match.
Murray did look to have a hamstring niggle at the end of his match with Nadal and it isn’t confirmed that he’ll even play here so I’m certainly not backing him but until his status is confirmed the match is best left alone.
The doubles group on Friday is really interesting. The way things have gone so far you would expect Marcelo Melo and Ivan Dodig to beat Zimonjic and Matkowski in the earlier match and that would take the second seeds onto two wins for the tournament.
That would mean that the US Open champions Nicolas Mahut and Pierre-Hugues Herbert would have to beat the Wimbledon champions Jean-Julien Roger and Horia Tecau to have any chance of progressing.
I’m not sure I would be confident in that happening though. Roger and Tecau have played some blinding tennis in this tournament so far and look full of confidence both when serving and returning.
Something hasn’t looked right with the all-French combination and while they got it done against Zimonjic and Matkowski they looked anything but convincing. Herbert in particular has looked a bag of nerves all week and in a pressure match you would think those nerves will only escalate so I’ll take the flourishing Roger and Tecau in this match at a surprising even money.
Back R.Nadal (-4 games) to beat D.Ferrer for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with Sportingbet
Back J-J.Roger/H.Tecau to beat N.Mahut/P-H.Herbert for a 4/10 stake at 2.00 with Bet365
