MIAMI GARDENS: Ashleigh Barty waited six hours to get her spot in the Miami Open women’s final. Denis Shapovalov needed to pull off yet another comeback to earn his berth into the semi-finals.
Roger Federer, meanwhile, made winning seem relatively easy.
And Simona Halep’s chance to return to number one in the world fell apart against Karolina Pliskova.
Federer is back in the Miami semi-finals, the fourth seed winning the first eight games of his match and eventually ousting sixth-seeded Kevin Anderson 6-0, 6-4 as part of a very long, very soggy Thursday at Hard Rock Stadium. He won a marathon ninth game of the final set to break Anderson for a 5-4 lead, then served it out at love.
“I got a bit lucky there at the end,” Federer said. “But it was a great fight by Kevin and of course I enjoyed the match.” Anderson hadn’t lost a set 6-0 since October 2016, 353 sets ago. He rallied from a break down to get back on serve in the second, before Federer took control at the end.
“They just don’t happen often enough,” Federer said of that 6-0 first set. “I think I played a really, solid, nice first set with very few mistakes.”
Mistakes doomed Halep, who lost to fifth-seeded Pliskova 7-5, 6-1. Pliskova was up 5-0 in the second set when play was interrupted for at least the sixth time Thursday by rain shortly before midnight. Halep, the second seed, would have replaced Naomi Osaka as the top-ranked women’s player if she won the semifinal.
She led 5-3 in the opening set, and just unraveled. Pliskova won nine consecutive games before the skies opened during a changeover. After waiting about an hour for the rain to stop and the court to be dried, she needed only four more minutes of play and finished out the match at 1:11 a.m. or 6:11 a.m. Friday in her native Czech Republic, 7:11 a.m. Friday in Halep’s native Romania.
So the day’s winners were Federer, Shapovalov, Barty, Pliskova and the rain.
“We can’t control the weather,” Barty said.
The weather could have badly affected Ashleigh Barty’s attempt to reach her biggest WTA final with a four hour delay putting her charge on hold.
The Australian had played just four games with Estonia’s Anett Kontaveit before the rains came although once play resumed, the 22-year-old, who will break into the top 10 off the back of this excellent run to Saturday’s final, took advantage of her error prone opponent to win 6-3, 6-3.
“It was a very long day. I know we had to wait around but it was an opportunity to drink some coffee and watch the golf so I was relaxed,” said Barty who took time out of the game in 2015 to play cricket before returning in 2016. “When I came out I was ready for business.”
Shapovalov, the highly regarded Canadian talent tipped for future Grand Slam success, won his battle of ‘Next Gen’ hustlers 6-7 (5-7), 6-4, 6-2 against American Frances Tiafoe to reach his third ATP Masters semi-final.
With Shapovalov, 19, taking on Federer and long time friend and compatriot Felix Auger-Aliassime, 18, facing defending champion John Isner in the semis, the tennis stars of tomorrow are beginning to prove their worth on the biggest of stages.
“It’s crazy for me and Felix to both have reached the semi-finals,” Shapovalov said. “I was just thinking in the locker room how far back we go, from the national groupings when we were eight and nine years old, so it’s so crazy to see how far we have come.”
