TipResumen

INTRODUCTION

Spaniard Rafael Nadal who is World Number 1 will take on Argentinian J.M. Del Potroin the first semi final of the US Open at Flushing Meadows in New York. In the quarter finals, Nadal needed five matches to beat D. Thiem, while Del Potro had a much easier time against American John Isner in his quarter final match.



NADAL

Nadal who was last season's defending Champion had a very difficult and uncertain quarter final match against where he needed five matches to defeat D. Thiem. It has to be said that even though he had no match balls, Thiem was close to a victory over Nadal, but he lacked self confidence to finish the match. The match lasted for almost five hours and ended with a score of 0:6 6:4 7:5 6:7 7:6 in favour of Nadal. The first set didn't go the way of Nadal and quite bizarre as he lost by 0:6. The Spaniard came back in the second set although it was still not that easy to win the set against the Austrian. It can be said that Thiem took a risk on his place in the semi finals because he had the break advantage and he served for the set. However, he failed to make his service count and then he allowed another break at his service, giving Nadal a big advantage of 2:1. The fifth set decider was failr equal and Nadal had a lot of luck in the tie break.



DEL POTRO

Even though he lost one set, Del Potro still came out victorious against John Isner. The Argentinian was a better player throughout the match and he constantly put pressure on the killer service-games ofthe American. Even though the American Isner has a great servicce game and has been in good shape this season, and the first set was quite even based on the winning of his own service games. Del Potro increased his poressure on Isner's service after he lost the first set, and in the middle of the second set he made the first break. That was in itself good enough to even the result. Del Potro then won the remaining two sets to win by 3:1 and the Argentinian can be satisfied with his performance in the quarter finals. In terms of the statistics, the number of directly won points was on Isner side as it was 67:49 and one statistics which was also on the American side was the number of unforced errors at 52:14.



PAST MEETINGS

Their head to head is 11:5 in favour of Nadal. Nadal has defeated Del Potro twice this season, the first time which was at at Roland Garros with 6:4 6:1 6:2 and the second time much harder at Wimbledon with 7:5 6:7 4:6 6:4 6:4.