This was another good performance from Rafa. He showed signs of the old magic which has to be encouraging. His first match was a tricky one against Ivo Karlovic. This video sums up how well he played to break Karlovic when he was serving for the first set.

He went on to break again to win that set. The next two sets were tiebreaks (as is so often the case with Karlovic) and Rafa played well to win,7-5, 6-7(4), 7-6(4).

 
He had another big server in the next round - Milos Raonic. A relatively easy first set was followed by a tiebreak but this time it didn't go to a third set. Rafa won,6-3, 7-6(3).

 
Rafa had lost the last couple of times he played Stan Wawrinka so I, for one, was not confident going into the quarter final. Needn't have stressed. Rafa stormed through, 6-2, 6-1.

 
In the semi final he came up against an inspired Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. Rafa lost with a truly bizarre scoreline, 4-6, 6-0, 5-7. (Tsonga, of course, went on to lose his next match.)

 
Overall, this year's Asian swing has been much more successful than last year's. Rafa has gained over 500 points (though, to be honest, I am not entirely sure whether the convoluted rules of the ATP allow him to count all of them) and should have enough to qualify for the World Tour Finals.

He'll now have a week off to prepare for the hard court tournaments back in Europe.

 

Siempre contigo, Rafa
¡Vamos!