Nadal to meet Djokovic at Monte Carlo Masters

Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic scored contrasting victories to set up an intriguing finale at the Monte Carlo Rolex Masters. The Spaniard survived a late match stutter to see off a fighting Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 6-3, 7-6 (3) to extend his winning streak at the event to 46 matches and reach an incredible ninth straight final. On the other hand, Djokovic offered Fabio Fognini the best seat in the house for a complimentary master class on top tier tennis as he outclassed him 6-2, 6-1 in less than an hour to keep his date with the emperor in what promises to be a cracking final on Sunday.

Tsonga needed a decent start to have any chance against Nadal. Probably mindful of the task at hand, the Frenchman presented a confident face by serving out the first game to love, powered by a beautifully executed backhand volley winner on the second point. The early confidence, loopy trajectory and depth on his strokes created the first opportunities for Tsonga in the fourth game. But three break points came and went, as Tsonga followed up winners with errors on each occasion to squander his chances of taking charge of the contest.

The resilient hold enabled Nadal to step up a notch in the very next game, riding the sudden crest of energy. A backhand crosscourt winner set up his first break point and even though it wasn’t taken, Tsonga gifted the break anyway with a couple of forehand errors. Nadal accepted the invitation with both hands, holding to love as he jumped to a 4-2 lead. The set was over in 31 minutes, when Tsonga succumbed to a second break in the ninth game. The world No.8 saved the first set point for Nadal with a forehand down the line winner, but a similar attempt on the next point sailed inches wide to hand the initiative firmly to the serial defending champion.

Tsonga tightened the noose around his own neck, when he flailed four consecutive unforced errors to be broken at love in the second game of the next set. The match seemed all but over when Tsonga was broken a second time – this time a Nadal forehand down the line winner doing the trick – in the sixth game for a commanding 5-1 lead. Tsonga is a mercurial player who is about as predictable as the weather and a sudden bout of exuberance brought him alive without too much notice. Nadal was two points away from taking his appointed place in the finals when Tsonga struck a fearsome forehand cross court winner before following that with a thundering backhand return winner to stay alive.

But the pressure was clearly still on Tsonga and he fell to 0-40 in the eighth game. An incredible sequence of four straight winners helped Tsonga cling to the match by a proverbial thread even as Nadal continued to pursue means to close out the victory. Buoyed by his ability to make a difficult hold, Tsonga attacked even more and Nadal was rushed into consecutive forehand errors that cost him a second break. Suddenly, the set was back on serve and Tsonga had given the match a new leash of life. Eventually, Nadal stemmed the rot by taking the eleventh game at love to leave Tsonga serving yet again to stay on the court.

Milking the pressure, Nadal earned match point #4 but an ill-directed backhand cross court left it spent and wasted. Tsonga held serve to force the breaker. The match gained in intensity as the players drew the spectators to the edge of their seats with the tie-breaker even at 3-3. A forehand down the line winner gave Nadal the first mini-break at 4-3 and the Spaniard held both his serves to gain three match points. This time Nadal needed no more, as he struck a thumping inside out forehand winner to seal his spot in the finals. Tsonga was the constant aggressor – and even though he had 34 winners, 13 more than Nadal – he also had 39 unforced errors that proved just way too many against an opponent with the class and pedigree of Nadal.

“It’s great for me to be in the final,” said Nadal looking ahead to Sunday. “It is fantastic, playing five tournaments in a row after injury, being in five finals in a row is great. I’m very happy for everything. We’ll see tomorrow. It will be very tough,” (sic).

“I always try to be aggressive when I play him,” said Tsonga. “It’s the only way for me. If I stay back, there’s no way I can win. So I tried to do that. It is better to make it difficult for him like I did today in the end because then I can think maybe next time, if the conditions are better, I might do better.”

In the other semi-finals, Djokovic exposed his mismatched opponent to dominate proceedings straight off the bat. Djokovic got off to a blistering 3-0 start, with the 32^nd ranked Italian struggling just to gain a foothold into the contest. Fognini did win the fourth game with a couple of blistering winners like the ones that have characterised his career best performance this entire week. A confident hold to love for 4-2 proved to be a red herring as Djokovic went on to clinch the set in just 29 minutes with another break in the eighth game.

Djokovic struck consecutive aces to take a similarly commanding 3-0 lead at the beginning of the second set. By now, Fognini resembled a pale shadow of his earlier rounds – back to back top 10 victims – as he struggled to hold his own against the rampant Serbian. A double fault helped Djokovic clinch a second break, leaving him on the verge of serving out the match at 5-1. The match was over when a forehand return from Fognini found its nest in the net on the first match point. It was an impressive show from Djokovic who won an impressive 54 out of 80 points in the match and surrendered a mere 8 points on his serve in the entire match.

Having come through the breezy semi-finals, Djokovic will have his hands full as he seeks his maiden title at the event. He trails Nadal 14-19 and has only won 2 of 14 matches against the Spaniard on clay. But as Dimitrov, for much of the quarter-finals, and Tsonga, for a short time in the semis, have shown, it is possible to challenge the emperor by taking the ball early and mixing up the pace by trying to take the play to the net. While there is no question about the tools at the disposition of Djokovic, it remains to be seen if he can sustain a winning strategy for long enough to take two sets before Nadal responds with brute power to send him scurrying back to the end of the court, retrieving difficult balls.

Nadal will be a formidable opponent for Djokovic on the red shale of Monte Carlo where he could clinch his fourth title since coming back from an injury layoff and his 23rd ATP World Tour Masters 1000 title. Nadal will be enthused by the fact that he won here against the Serbian in 2009 (3 sets) and last year for the loss of just four games. The Spaniard has an astounding 48-1 record at the exclusive club on the Mediterranean coast and will start as the firm favourite to take his ninth straight title at the event.