Three of the four top seeds have advanced to the Shanghai semifinals, with Borna Coric being the lone outsider. Coric is going up against No. 1 seed Roger Federer on Saturday, while three-time champion Novak Djokovic faces Alexander Zverev.
(1) Roger Federer vs. (13) Borna Coric
Federer and Coric will be facing each other for the fourth time in their careers when they battle for a place in the Shanghai Masters title match on Saturday. The head-to-head series stands at 2-1 in favor of Federer, who is 2-0 against Coric in hard-court semifinals (Dubai in 2015 and Indian Wells earlier this season). Their recent grass-court showdown in the Halle final went the other way, with the 21-year-old Croat pulling off a 7-6(6), 3-6, 6-2 stunner.
While another upset would be much less surprising on this surface and with Federer not exactly at his best right now, it also is not likely. The 37-year-old Swiss raised his level following three-set victories over Daniil Medvedev and Roberto Bautista Agut to beat Kei Nishikori 6-4, 7-6(4) on Friday. Coric, meanwhile, has benefited from a favorable draw since ousting Stan Wawrinka 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 in a tough opener. The 19th-ranked Croat, who had been 0-2 on the Asian swing prior to this week, followed that up with wins over Bradley Klahn and Matthew Ebden plus a third-round retirement from Juan Martin Del Potro. On a surface that is not quite grass but still favors Federer, the top seed should continue to pick up his game and book a spot in the final.
Pick: Federer in 2 with no tiebreakers
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(4) Alexander Zverev vs. (2) Novak Djokovic
Is there any stopping Djokovic in Shanghai? Already a three-time champion in the relatively short history of this event, the world No. 3 has been the best player this week with a trio of mostly routine wins under his belt. Djokovic is an awesome 26-1 in his last 27 matches–including major titles at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open–following defeats of Jeremy Chardy, Marco Cecchinato, and Kevin Anderson.
Although Zverev is looking for his first triumph in Shanghai, he is quite accomplished at the Masters 1000 level in general. At just 21 years old, he already owns three of these titles; including in Madrid earlier this year. Zverev is through to another semifinal thanks to victories at the expense of Nikoloz Basilashvili, Alex de Minaur, and Kyle Edmund. Whereas offense should beat defense in Federer-Coric, the opposite is true in this matchup. And Djokovic can obviously mix in plenty of offense whenever he chooses, too.
Pick: Djokovic in 2
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WWW?
Djoker and Fed in two
Djoko is beating Sasha 6-2, 6-1 in exactly an hour! Sasha is truly one dimensional, staying at the baseline to rally with Djoko is simply asking for troubles.
I suggest these non big four top ten players go watch how the big four play their matches, how they approach the net, how they play with varieties, how well they return serves and how well they are able to stay in the point, and so at least pick up some tips on how to improve their own games.
Djoko don’t even need to play like the way he played during early 2016, and he still could beat this Sasha 6-2, 6-1 without even facing a break point. There’s really a vast chasm between these other top ten players (excluding top form Delpo and Stan) and the big four, the big three are 37, 32 and 31 year olds yet they’re beating their other top ten counterparts so often and that’s why they’re still the top three now (despite Rafa missing one whole chunk of the season; despite Fed skipping the clay season and despite Djoko playing so poorly the first half of the season!).
Djoko is back to his best and looking unbeatable. Fed (if he gets there) has his work cut out
I don’t think Djokovic is at his unbeatable best, but Fed looks further from his top game, even though he was better against Nishikori. He’s too patchy, and I don’t quite trust him on the big points these days. Hope I’m wrong, but if he makes it to Djoker (I won’t be that surprised if Coric wins) I think he’ll get done over, maybe 6-3, 6-4, something like that.
So now Djoko is 827-173 in his 1000 matches played, better than both Fed (813-187) and Rafa (822-178).
By the end of his career Djoko will definitely be the GOAT
I’d said it before, Djoko may be the ultimate Goat ( if one believe in Goat) while Rafa will be the clay court Goat. Fed may be the Goat on grass.
True. Djoker is back !! Goat Story keeps on getting interesting.
I hope Fed wins his match as he is the only one who can come close to beating this Novak, although I think this is Novak’s title…the way he plays he will definitely be No 1 soon…
I am just amazed how Novak can run forever without even looking a bit tired! He reminds me of those all bones marathon runners who are so thin but their endurance is sky high…
All I know is if Fed is forced to engage in the long rallies with Novak he will stand no chance! Hope Fed can impose his serve and volley game and tries to outsmart Novak as he did on numerous occasions in the past…
Well done, Borna!
Im tempted to think if fed is ducking Novak. 2 times in a row now…uso n Shanghai both times he was favored to win
Why would he lose out on points . Yes, both times he would have been crushed. I doubt Fed would duck. Great players always back themselves to win. Unfortunate that
I doubt he cares if he is no 3 n knows he is not favored to be in top 2. He anyway has to beat both Rafa n Novak to any big title going forth. With this loss..j think Novak n Rafa are guaranteed to be top 2 n will be seeded 1 n 2 for ao too. Rafa has nothing to defend really now n fed still has 1100. Novak is surely ending no 1. Too bad Rafa got injured to not be able to compete n fight for it.
If Fed didn’t care of the ranking, he wouldn’t have requested a last minute wild card to enter the Rotterdam tournament.
Or maybe knowing that he has to face Novak is adding nerves and affecting his play. Straight sets to borna on super fast Shanghai court is not digestable
Rafa is always injured don’t you think? The problem with him is that he wants to play as many matches as possible. He was doing well last year by playing more aggressive/ offensive tennis but made the dumb decision of playing Beijing/Shanghai B2B after playing the Laver Cup.
Look at Fed and Djoko, they’re careful enough not to over exert themselves after playing Laver Cup, and Fed won Shanghai last year and has reached SF this year; Djoko skips Beijing this year after LC and now has reached the final, both don’t suffer any injury.
Rafa has himself to blame for overplaying and getting injured. It’s many times now that when he’s at the cusp of achieving something big or something special, that he had to get injured and hence failed to achieve them. He’s in good position to retain/defend his YE no.1 ranking for the first time in his career, if he has not gotten injured, and yet now he’s going to lose it because of his injury.
Luckystar OCTOBER 13, 2018 AT 2:18 PM: “…made the dumb decision of playing Beijing/Shanghai B2B after playing the Laver Cup.
Look at Fed and Djoko, they’re careful enough not to over exert themselves after playing Laver Cup, and Fed won Shanghai last year…”
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The “dumb decision” brought Rafa the title in Beijing, reaching the final in Shanghai and finishing the year as #1.
The “careful” Fed lost to Goffin at the 2017 WTF and Djoko spent 6 months off the tour with an elbow injury last year.
Vamos Rafa – no matter what!
And then thereafter? Got himself injured at Shanghai, had to retire/withdraw from matches due to injury; lost to Cilic at AO due to injury, missed so many tournaments, his serve suffered and so he had to work so hard to win his matches thus causing him further injuries; not forgetting he losing narrowly to Djoko at Wimbledon when it’s a winnable match had he won the third set TB having a SP.
Fed won Shanghai last year after the LC and never got injured, hence he’s still able to win the AO this year! Djoko had elbow issue last year and he had not played at the LC last year! Look how smart he is this year with his scheduling, not wanting to play at Beijing after the LC and he has now reached the final
At Shanghai without any injury, unlike Rafa last year.
Anonymous OCTOBER 13, 2018 AT 3:20 PM: “…And then thereafter?”
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He became World No.1.
Augusta, and then now he has problem defending his YE no.1 ranking! Read again my post above, I said when he’s at the cusp of doing something special (retaining the YE no.1 ranking which he failed to do, not even once, during his long career). Sadly, he couldn’t even defend a non clay title ever in his career so far, many times due to him being injured and either had to miss the event or simply losing early.
Hmm. I wonder why you are so obsessed with “defending” something.
(I’m well aware that this has been a pillar of Fed devotees’ anti-Rafa campaign.)
The worst was when rafa overplayed in 2009 after his incredible exertions at the ao. Rafa was absolutely dominant then and should have won both Rg and wimby, instead that was the beginning of a horrible period. Think what his slam count could and arguably should have been!!!
That’s one of the reasons I don’t believe in the whole silly goat business…winning slams is conditional on so many different factors…
Yes agreed, Amy. I’d said it in the past, that I feel/felt that Rafa would be and should be at his best when he’s at his peak during 2009 and winning the channel slam in that year was within his grasp, had it not for his lousy and overcrowded schedule leading to injuries.
I’ll post my thoughts on Rafa (and Toni) at the Players – Rafael Nadal page.
If you’re one who’s just happy with Rafa getting to YE no.1 but not able to retain it for another year, then by all means think that Rafa is doing well. I’m one who think that Rafa can do better if he’s wise enough to avoid the injuries.
Luckystar AT 3:23 PM,
I’m a Rafa fan and I support him in whatever he decides to do.
Well, I would have preferred Rafa skip Paris entirely last year (he played a match there purely to nail down the YE #1) and retire from the first game of the WTF as soon as he knew he wasn’t fit to continue in the event. But Rafa does not play tennis to make me or you happy. He plays it to make himself happy and his decisions are not always based on winning slams and certainly not on winning the WTF. Clearly winning DC finals made him much happier than winning at the WTF and playing Olympics makes him a whole lot happier than getting ATP ranking points. Given the way he feels about the Olympics and Spain he’d have traded off *anything* just to play in Brazil in 2016.
As it is Rafa played 11 tournaments this year so far. Djokovic and Federer have each played 13. So I hardly think you can accuse Rafa of overplaying this year. He’s got tendinitis and sometimes it acts up. All three guys are past 32. They’re all going to be dealing with more frequent injuries from here on out and Federer in particular will have more frequent “off” days. That’s just the way it is. If Rafa had beaten Djokovic at Wimbledon he’d be #1. He lost a very close match, one of those matches that, despite the bad luck of having to play under the roof, he said might have gone either way. That’s tennis.
I agree with lucky 100%!
For the whole of last year rafa said what mattered most was not winning tourneys or his ranking but being free from injury. In this context his decisions last autumn were especially baffling and annoying. I said last autumn his decisions would cost him in the early part of 2018…I really hope he is cautious now and listens to his team who didn’t want him to play Paris and the wtf last year.
Ramara, he overplayed last year leading to injuries and thus a disastrous 2018, missing so many events. Imo, a Rafa without injuries playing a carefully planned out schedule will be close to his best level of 2013, even on the HCs (and he played better than 2013 when on clay except that he’s older now so lost at QF stage at one clay masters in both 2017/2018 compared to losing a final to Djoko at MC in 2013).
He was awesome in reaching AO final in 2017 on quick HC and coming back from injury; while he couldn’t win a HC master last year, he still won the USO, reached two HC Masters finals. In 2018, even without his usual good serve, he was still able to reach Wimbledon SF and only lost a close five set match to Djoko, won a HC masters too.
To me, Rafa was/is playing some awesome tennis esp on clay even at the age of 32, and without injury I’m sure he’s able to win more matches and more titles.
I agree with lucky. I thought rafa was crazy to risk his knee in the Autumn last year given that he had spent the entire year saying what mattered most wasn’t winning tourneys or his ranking but staying healthy!
Anyone else having trouble posting?
I agree with lucky! 100%!
Djokovic will surely win the World Tour Finals and end the year as the world number one.
Yes and I am ok with that if it means rafa protects his health. I don’t want him to lose the #2 ranking though…
How likely is it that fed ends up #2 if rafa doesn’t play at all?
Amy, it’s highly unlikely that Fed will end up YE no.2 even when Rafa is not playing for the rest of the season. Fed has to practically win two of the remaining three events, assuming he’s playing Basel, Paris Masters and WTF. With Djoko around, I doubt Fed is going to win all of those titles.
He’ll probably ends at no.3, with Delpo now injured and looking unlikely to do well after coming back from injury to play for the rest of the season. Sasha Zverev is not looking good as usual when it’s coming towards the back end of the season (he didn’t do well same time last year).
The rest of the TOP ten, none of them looking good enough to win and surge ahead of Fed. I think Rafa’s TOP two position in the rankings is safe.
Thanks lucky! I don’t want rafa to drop below #2 for the ao!😀
Since the ao fed seems to be struggling for form. It would be foolish to discount him but if both rafa and Nole are healthy winning ao will be a big ask for him.
He won’t. I think it’ll go 1) Djoker 2) Nadal 3) Fed
Borna:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bo4Ar8PlT-V/
It’ll be a different story for Borna Coric tomorrow when faces Djoko. Borna is a junior version of Djoko, not going to beat the senior original version, unless something exceptional or unforeseen happens.
Borna became Fed devotees’ hero after defeating Rafa in 2014.
Karma has hit back.
Yeah that’s definitely true. By your logic, I am also a fan of Rosol.
Id be a fan of Kyrgios for same reason, but for his controversial stuff.
Glad you guys are joking. Not sure I could wish a worse fate than being fans of NK and Rosol.
Novak in 2, yes but no way Federer in 2.
Federer will retire in the next 18 months. You heard it right here people.