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| Friday, November 15 Look for some unexpected finalists By Patrick McEnroe Special to ESPN.com |
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These are two great semifinal matchups between players who know each other very well. Lleyton Hewitt is 5-2 against Roger Federer, and Juan Carlos Ferrreo and Carlos Moya are very good friends who have played many times. Moya's the old guy, and he's only 26, and the rest of the semfinalists are all young guns.
Obviously, Moya has been playing better recently, having not lost a match in the round robin. He's so on form he should be the favorite -- despite the fact that Ferrero has beaten him six times, although most of those wins have come on clay. So although I think Moya is overall a better hard-court player, I believe that Ferrero will win this match because I think Moya's three-set victory against Costa on Friday took a lot out of him. He looked extremely tired at the end of the match. And quite often when two baseline players with similar styles go at it, the one with the fresher legs usually prevails. So look for Ferrero to win this. The second match has the makings of being a classic, with Hewitt, the No. 1 player in the world, and Federer, so far this week looking like the future No. 1 player of the world. Federer's all-court game has been clicking on all-cylinders this week. Federer is full of confidence and his game on this relatively slow hard court matches up very well with Hewitt. Hewitt has struggled in all his matches this week and if Federer can play with consistency and keep his head together, I think he'll upset Hewitt. So there you have it, I'm going for the two underdogs. But it's certainly nice to see three out of the four semifinalists all of the coming generation: Hewitt, Federer and Ferrero. So the new generation, at least this week, has firmly taken over. |
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