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Vinay Nayudu
Doha
As in life, in sport too you need both pluck and luck to excel. And while Doha-resident Fernando Verdasco showed a lot of pluck, playing courageously, he just didn't have the rub of luck to nail defending champion Novak Djokovic, who survived five match points, on a chilly and windy Friday, to reach the singles final of Qatar ExxonMobil Open.
World No. 2 Djokovic prevailed 4-6, 7-6 (7), 6-3 after the 42nd-ranked Verdasco, a crafty left-hander and former World No. 7, controlled the first two sets until the latter stages of the tiebreaker only to see his hopes vanish in thin air at the Khalifa International Squash and Tennis Stadium.
Djokovic's escape to victory also set a mouth-watering final clash between him and the new World No. 1 Andy Murray, who had no worries in beating beat the tall and World No. 10 Tomas Berdych of Czech Republic 6-3, 6-4.
The evening, however, belonged as much to Verdasco as it did to Djokovic.
"I am disappointed, more than that I'm sad," said the crestfallen 33-year-old Verdasco after the match.
"I tried everything and gave my best possible. Honestly, I don't think I played that bad or I didn't play bad at all. It just didn't come my way.
"I served very well, returned deep, tried to change the direction... To think of the match points I had, sometimes things don't just happen your way. It is tough mentally and it's tough to come back from there on," he explained.
Verdasco negated the notion that there was pressure on him playing against the World No. 2 and 12-time Grand Slam champion."This was the 13th time we were playing against each other and it was just his (Djokovic's) day. I played very good tennis throughout the week, had a great start to the year beating two Top-20 players. I was just a point away from making the final here but I wasn't able to finish it. You don't want to lose like that against anybody," he said.
Djokovic too felt sorry for Fernando and said,"I would like to say tough luck for Fernando, he was clearly the better player for the bigger part of the match and he should have won. It was just unfortunate.
"It's definitely one of the most exciting matches I've played. I don't think I've saved five match points too many times."
Of the five match points Verdasco held in the second-set tiebreaker, four went away quickly due to his own mistakes.
The second-seeded Djokovic, who hadn't lost a set till the semifinal, broke Verdasco's serve in the third game of the third set to finally establish what turned into a permanent lead in the 2-hour, 22-minute match. Djokovic, who only had one unforced error in the final set, sealed the match by breaking Verdasco's serve in the final game. Verdasco initially trailed 4-2 in the first set, then broke Djokovic without giving a point in the 7th and 9th games to take the set.
In the second set at 4-4 and 40-all, the two traded to snatch the advantage and one of the rallies had 26 shots and was eventually won by Djokovic. Such was the charge that the Serbian threw his hands in the air calling for the holiday crowd to cheer for him.
Their next big moment was in the tiebreaker when at 5-5, Djokovic won the battle after 31 shots to clinch the lead at 6-5.
Verdasco had another chance at 7-7 but his backhand slice was too deep and crossed the baseline and soon Djokovic put the issue beyond doubt.
Verdasco's eight unforced errors against Djokovic's nil explained for the big miss which the Spaniard will surely rue for some time to come.
