When seed-slayer Leonardo Mayer (ARG) and Florian Mayer (GER), the No. 8 seed, walked on Stadium Court today to play the first semifinal at the BMW Tennis Championship, everyone in the crowd knew that the match was going to be a battle, and "the Mayers" didn't disappoint. Two hours after Leonardo served the first ball of the match, Florian served an ace on match point in the third set to win the thriller, 7-6 (2), 4-6, 6-3. Florian advances to tomorrow's finals, where he will face No. 2 seed Gilles Simon (FRA).

The two Mayers played each other last month in the round of 16 at the Delray Beach International Tennis Championships, where Florian won 6-4, 7-6 (4). Playing again so soon after that match clearly inspired them to play even harder, with Florian wanting revenge and Leonardo wanting to add yet another name to his list of victories over seeded players at the tournament.

Florian immediately put pressure on Leonardo by not missing a first serve until the third point of his second service game, making 78% of all his first serves. Florian serving this well put added pressure on Leonardo to hold his own serve. This pressure may have been part of the reason that, except for the first game of the set, Leonardo was forced to deuce in every one of his service games in the set. Adding to his difficulties, Leonardo hit 21 unforced errors in the set, a problem that had plagued him throughout the tournament.

After exchanging breaks in the fifth and sixth games, the two Mayers held serve to send the set to a tiebreak. With the score tied at 2-2 in the breaker, the combined effect of Florian not missing a single first serve and Leonardo hitting three unforced errors led to Florian's taking the tiebreak 7-4.

Leonardo came out a different player in the second set, cutting his unforced errors in half and venturing to the net to shorten the rallies. It also appeared as if he suddenly had a memory flashback to their February match, because he began hitting drop shots to take advantage of Florian's lack of mobility. The tactic wasn't always successful, but it forced Florian to anticipate yet another shot in Leonardo's bag of tricks.

Though Florian continued to complete a high number of first serves, Leonardo was able to break him in the third game at love when Florian suffered a loss of concentration and made consecutive unforced errors on easy shots. Neither player was pushed past 30 in any of the subsequent games and Leonardo won the second set 6-4.

Before the start of the third set, Leonardo chose to take a 10-minute bathroom break, which is permitted according to the ATP Tour rule book as long as he is accompanied by a tournament official. Considering the drop in his play once he returned, one has to wonder if the timing of the break was for health reasons.

Florian began the third set strongly by getting in all but one of his first serves and winning the first game, dropping only one point. On the other hand, Leonardo began to make more unforced errors again, and had to fight off two break points before winning his first service game. The next three consecutive service breaks in the middle of the set were unusual and they determined the winner of the match.

Serving at 1-2, Leonardo didn't miss a first serve in the six-point game, but still managed to lose his serve. Florian served leading 3-1 and was broken at love. The seventh game in this unusual set of service breaks went to Florian, though Leonardo only missed one of first serves in the game. With this service break, Florian had a 5-2 lead.

The final two games of the match were no less unusual than the middle three. Florian didn't put up much of a fight in what turned out to be Leonardo's last service game, which Leonardo won at love. In fact, Florian skyed Leonardo's serve at 40-love, hitting the fence on the fly behind Leonardo. Then Florian, serving for the match at 5-3, played serve and volley on every point to win the set and the match, even though he hadn't played serve and volley on any point in any of his previous service games.

Florian was gracious during the post-match interview when he recognized that Leonardo had to be very tired given the fact that every one of Leonardo's matches in the previous rounds had gone to three sets. Leonardo is a player on the rise who was named as the "Mover of the Week" earlier this month on the South African Airlines ATP Tour computer rankings.

Florian advances to the final tomorrow to play Gilles Simon, the No. 2 seed who won his semifinal match against Santiago Giraldo (COL) this evening. In their last meeting, which was at this tournament in 2006, Florian beat Simon in straight sets, 6-3, 7-5.

Story by Tony Angeline, BMW Tennis Championship Media Staff
March 20, 2010