Single-handed Beating

In the first semifinal match at the Tennis Masters Cup tonight, Roger Federer force-fed Gaston Gaudio a double bagel worthy of Princess Leia's hairdo. Poor Gaudio; after outlasting Fernando Gonzalez last night, he couldn't do much against a fully-awake and aggressive Federer. The Swiss is through to the final for the third time in three years. Should he win that, he will take home $1.52 million in prize money as undefeated winner.

Here's an interesting piece of trivia about this year's Masters Cup. (I originally posted this on Tennis Warehouse.) The players who actually played through their round-robin matches were Roger Federer, Guillermo Coria, Nikolay Davydenko, David Nalbandian, Ivan Ljubicic, Gaston Gaudio, Mariano Puerta, and Fernando Gonzalez. Out of these eight players, only three use a double-handed backhand (Coria, Davydenko, and Nalbandian). The five other players use a single-handed backhand.

If the four players who withdrew hadn't done so, however, the field would look like this: Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Andy Roddick, Lleyton Hewitt, Nikolay Davydenko, Andre Agassi, Guillermo Coria, and Marat Safin. Out of those eight, only Federer uses a single-handed backhand.

Now, in the other semifinal of Davydenko versus Nalbandian, both players use a double-handed backhand. Either of them could meet Federer in the final. Should Federer win the title for the third time, it would lend a different meaning to the phrase "single-handedly beating the opposition," wouldn't it?

UPDATE: It's a carb-loading spree: Nalbandian handed Davydenko his first loss of a set, and it was in the form of a bagel. However, Davydenko served and won the first game of the second set, so there won't be another double-bagel tonight. Nalbandian won the semifinal 6-0,7-5 and moves into the final versus Federer.

posted by Noelle De Guzman @ 8:01 PM