Smiling His Way Through to the Final Pame Marcos Baghdatis

This was the only semi final that I was interested in watching live and fortunately for myself I was able to get a ticket to watch the Nalbandian/Baghdatis match and enjoy the spectacle.

At the same time it was quite difficult to cheer for anyone in this match as I happen to enjoy both of their games and hoped that either one of them will win the final on Sunday, that would be a perfect way to end this tournament. So I was going for Nalle as I thought he had a better chance of winning and all the while cheering Marcos's great shots, so it went down pretty easily in this regard.

Initially both players were pretty nervous, but Nalle settled down a bit quicker and was controlling the play very well and that down the line backhand was the foundation for his early success in this match and he was handling the occasion better than Marcos was, who seemed very heavy legged like he was running around in quicksand and the smiling face wasn't there as much, but he was not going to give it away easily.

Nalle takes the first set and is still in control of the second set with two breaks, though he seems to have pointed to his stomach or something, but he loses his breaks and then breaks again and holds on the second set, but Marcos is still in the match and that was a good thing as I wanted to see some good tennis.

Third set is tight and Marcos starts to move better as he has nothing to lose and is cutting the down the errors and the Greek fans cheering constantly though scattered are helping him and he manages to get the break of serve to take the 3rd set and now we have a match, but at the time I still thought Nalle would come through in 4 sets and at this time I was grateful that Marcos won a set and didn't disgrace himself.

The fourth set Marcos stepped it up and is improving his length of shots and is hitting backhand winners of returns and moving Nalle around and takes it to the decider. There was a momentum shift for sure and Marcos has never lost a 5 setter and there is the saying there is always a first time and at the back of my mind I thought this was it, however Marcos had it and wasn't going to lose it.

Nalle breaks serve and then loses it again and both are bit nervy as the stakes are very high and that backhand that was working so well wasn't and he was lifting up a lot on his forehand. Marcos was just fighting and fighting and manouvering the ball around very well, but the little weakness he does have, is when he fits a very good shot and he gets a floater, he gets a bit passive and doesn't move in to the kill the ball, if he can do that and get fitter then all the better.

Marcos gets the break at 5-4 and 15 all and then it decides to rain. I just laughed and this Belgian/Moroccan guy next to me, we started dancing and making a close the roof gesture and this was tough for both players, especially as Marcos has to serve out the match, but the atmosphere was festive and it was great to be there. After the resumption of play Nalle hits two cheap unforced errors on the return and then those magic words Game Set Match Baghdatis and then the crowd went off.

The kid pulls off another surprise, he has beaten three top 10 players in this tournament and so has every right to make the final and the Greek fans are loving it and Nalle gets a standing ovation as well and he must be gutted with an opportunity like this that was blown to make a Slam final, but he only has himself to blame as he might have relaxed a bit, he made too many errors and Marcos took the initiative and that's great for him and he is in the final. The essential stat was once again the break point conversions Nalle had more chances, but Marcos did better with them and needs to do the same on Sunday.

This has Euro 2004 overtones when the Greeks won the championship, just hope the result is the same come Sunday night. I mean I know the Greeks are very superstitious and hopefully in this case it works. After the match was a great atmosphere, singing and dancing in the stadium, people on the phone to family and friends in Cyprus and there was plenty of celebrating to be had later in the evening.

One funny scenario was one of my Greek friends was at a wedding and he and 10 others when there was a power cut, ran outside as one of them had a hand held TV trying to get reception of the match when it was in the 5th set, they disappeared and people were wondering where they were and there were passers by trying to get the score and visualisation of these guys screaming "Fuck" after the time he lost a point is endlessly hilarious, and if I was there, no doubt I'd have been involved in that sort of thing.

Marcos's father Christos will come out for the event and if the rumour is true his second father Yiannos the godfather of Cypriot tennis will be around as well and I hope this is the case. These two men have had a huge influence on his career, especially Yiannos as he had a place at the National Centre in Nicosia and Marcos is from Limassol and Marcos lived there and did everything to get him to the level where Marcos was able to go somewhere to further his tennis and lucky he found a sponsor when he did. It would be good for him to have two of his founding influences there on his biggest day.

After the match, there was plenty of chanting outside the stadium and they made their way to the closest pub to Tennis Centre called the Depot which is a shithole, but when the Greeks turned it up, it was fun and I rang my friend the one at the wedding and told the Greeks to give him a cheer and it radiated very loudly through his phone and venue, too bad the women in the place were hideous and not even the amount of alcohol made it any better and there were a lot of us there as well, imagine if he wins on Sunday.