David Ferrer reached his first ATP World Tour final for 21 months as he beat fellow Spaniard and last year’s finalist Fernando Verdasco 6-1 6-7(3) 6-4 in Bastad.
The 2013 Roland Garros finalist took the match to Verdasco with some crushing shots that moved his opponent around the court. Ferrer broke five times during the course of the match as he eventually sealed the match in two hours and ten minutes in true David Ferrer fashion. The experienced Ferrer neutralised the power of Verdasco and the world number 39 think about his tennis to try and overcome the defensive skills of Ferrer.
Another key to success for Ferrer was forcing Verdasco to create unforced errors which is a tactic that worked for the world number 46 in 13 of the last 20 meeting between the pair. The victory means that Ferrer is into his first ATP World Tour Final since Vienna in October 2015 and is also into his fourth Skistar Swedish Open final.
The Spaniard will now play the unique playing style of Alexandr Dolgopolov who overcame Russian Andrey Kuznetsov in convincing fashion. The Ukrainian proved his style of tennis was too much in a 6-3 6-2 victory. The two men were only separated by one ranking place but it wouldn’t look like it if you saw the contest as Dolgopolov broke three times in the match to win in 64 minutes.
Despite the result Dolgopolov denied that the match was easy, ‘We had a lot of tight games and he had a number of chances on my serve, but I kept it tight and ran away with it in the second set.’
Both Dolgopolov and Ferrer saved two match points in their respective Quarter-Final matches, so the Swedish crowd should expect a spectacular contest. The pair have met 13 times with Ferrer leading the head to head 9-4, although Dolgopolov won their last clay court meeting in February at the Rio Open.
