ROME – This year’s Italian Open will treat tennis fans to four very compelling semifinals. The top half of the women’s tournament will feature the clash between world No. 1 Simona Halep – who emerged unscathed from a very tough draw that saw the Romanian dominate Naomi Osaka in her opening match – and none other than Maria Sharapova, who is currently sitting at No. 40 in the world, but has won this event three times.
Sharapova prevailed over reigning French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko in a high-quality battle that the Russian won 7-5 in the third. Ostapenko is the first top ten player that Maria defeats this year. So far in her career, Sharapova has won 21 matches against top ten players.
In the bottom half of the draw, world No. 4 and defending champion Elina Svitolina will face the challenge presented by world No. 26 Anett Kontaveit of Estonia. Kontaveit has been showing an incredible form throughout the event so far, knocking out world No. 12 Coco Vandeweghe, former world No. 2 and two-time Grand Slam champion Svetlana Kuznetsova, world No. 8 and tennis legend Venus Williams and finally current world No. 2 Caroline Wozniacki.
Sharapova leads the head-to-head against Halep 7-1, but in my opinion, Maria will not be the favorite in today’s semifinal. In the second semifinal, I think that Svitolina will prevail over Kontaveit.
Even if I would like to see Sharapova compete in a big final again, Halep-Svitolina should be the most likely final on paper, in a repeat of last year’s championship match that saw the Ukrainian capture the title after Halep failed to capitalize on quite a significant lead.
As for the men’s tournament, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic will clash for the 51st time in their careers. The rivalry between the Spaniard and the Serb is the most prolific that men’s tennis has ever seen, with Novak leading 24-22. Nevertheless, the biggest rivalry in tennis history remains Evert-Navratilova with an astonishing 80 matches.
The second men’s semifinal will be contested by No. 2-seed and defending champion Alexander Zverev and No. 4-seed and former US Open champion Marin Cilic. It is important to mention that three of the four semifinalists have captured 12 of the last 13 editions of the Italian Open: Nadal leads the pack with 7 titles, followed by Djokovic with 4 and Zverev with 1.
In my opinion, the most likely final will be Nadal-Zverev. Rafa looked extremely solid in overcoming an inspired Fabio Fognini in the quarterfinals. After dropping the first set 6-4 to the Italian, Nadal conceded 5 points in his service games during the second set and only 2 in the third.
Fognini should leave the Foro Italico keeping his head high: The Italian played some incredible tennis throughout the entire week, defeating Monfils, Gojowczyk and world No. 8 Thiem and reaching the quarterfinals for the first time in eleven attempts.
It will be fascinating to see how Djokovic will fare against Nadal. This will be Nole’s first semifinal match of the year, after a disastrous start of his season with 6 losses in the 12 matches that he contested.
Alexander Zverev showed some innate talent when he was down a break in the third set against a brilliant David Goffin in the last quarterfinal of the evening session. While many believed that the young German was about to lose the match, Zverev got himself out of a hole with great perseverance. Currently sitting at No. 3, Zverev seems ready to sit on the top of the world as soon as Nadal gives up some ground and Federer decides to finally call it a career.
Marin Cilic has reached his first Masters 1000 semifinal on the dirt, dominating a clay-court specialist such as Carreno Busta. I don’t think that the Croat will go on and defeat Zverev, unless the German starts feeling fatigued after the many matches that he played in the past three weeks, winning back-to-back titles in Munich and Madrid and reaching the semifinals in Rome.
(Article translation provided by T&L Global – Translation & Language Solutions – www.t-lglobal.com )
