Many people expecting a Djokovic-Federer final were shocked at the semifinal results, where we had not one but two surprising results. Kei Nishikori became the first Asian player to make a Grand Slam final after he defeated the world number 1, Novak Djokovic in 4 sets. This was the third top10 win in a row for the Japanese after he beat Raonic
and Wawrinka in 5 sets in the previous two rounds. This makes his path
to the final harder than his opponents.
Marin Cilic reached the quarterfinal here at Flushing Meadows in 2009 and played in the semifinal stage at the Australian Open in 2010. This made people talk about the great potential that he has, a potential that he didn’t live up to until this year. He reached the quarterfinals at Wimbledon, where he was a set away from beating Djokovic. This year in New York he has definitely impressed – he dropped just 3 sets en route to the final – 1 against Anderson and 2 in his closest match against Simon. In the semifinal Cilic served really well and gave no chances to Federer, comfortably defeating him in 3 sets.
Both players are playing their first Slam final and the stakes are really high. They will have to deal with a lot of pressure, which might result in some mistakes in the beginning. I cannot see either player winning this in 3 sets. In fact, I can easily see the final go all the way into a final 5th set. This is why I think it’s a good idea to place moderate stakes on over 41,5 games at 1.90@
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