Sooooo Maria v Ana was uneventful…….. hahahaha! It seems I missed out on the craziest WTA match of the year! Right after writing this preview, i’m going to watch some highlights of that third set.  Ana Ivanovic defeated Maria Sharapova, 6-2 5-7 7-5 for a monstrously huge win.  Ivanovic led 6-2 4-0 before Sharapova came back and then served for the match in the decider, bringing up match points, but failing to convert.  I can’t remember many matches where Sharapova squandered match points.  Equally, I can’t remember matches where Ivanovic had a collapse, but still managed to pull out the win.  Sam Davis of Around the Post does a great job of detailing all the drama from the match so i’d recommend reading his post on the match HERE, if like me, you missed the craziness.

The first semi-final in Cincy also went the distance but was extremely uneventful.  Serena Williams defeated Caroline Wozniacki, 2-6 6-2 6-4 in a messy match.  Wozniacki came out of the blocks fast and raced into a *5-1 lead.  I sound like a broken record, but she has looked so positive all week.  Blending together her wall-like defensive qualities and a desire to go for her shots more, Caroline found the perfect balance early on.  However her game began to disintegrate and it all stemmed around the serve.  She failed to serve out the first set, throwing in a couple of double faults and generally playing a dire game.  She broke Serena in the next game to claim the set with Serena not serving great herself, but she never recovered the serve through the rest of the match.

Serena looked flat in the first set, but she improved as the match went on and became much more dominant as Wozniacki’s tactics became fuzzy.  There were five breaks of serve at the start of the third set and it really was not a fun encounter to watch at all.  Wozniacki threatened to prolong the match (to the delight of everyone watching) but Serena served out the match with a confident hold of serve.  Caroline’s had a great few weeks, but i’m not quite sure what happened to her serve.

Matches between Williams and Ivanovic have been super this year and it’s a much more intriguing prospect than Serena-Maria.  They have played three matches this year and all three have gone the distance.  In their last match, Williams defeated Ivanovic in the Stanford quarter-finals, 2-6 6-3 7-5.  I still can’t get over the fact Ivanovic managed to beat Sharapova based on the circumstances of that match.  Going in Serena’s favour is that Ivanovic’s match finished pretty late.  Ivanovic definitely has chances, but i’d still take Serena to win her first ever Cincy title.

Prediction: Williams d. Ivanovic in 3 sets

It’s been a good week of predictons as I correctly called 7 out of 8 quarter-finalists… unfortunately, both my finalists fell in the semi-finals!

ATP Cincy Final Prediction

I really don’t have the motivation to preview the ATP final.  I’m feeling on a bit of a downer with men’s tennis at the moment.  I’m surprised at how well Federer has played this week and I predict he will beat David Ferrer in straight sets to win his biggest title of the year.

Photo included in this post by Omar Boraby