Finals Action in Moscow and Stockholm

The finals for both ATP tournaments have been settled with top seed Gael Monfils taking on Jarkko Nieminen in Stockholm. Playing the his 12th straight Stockholm Open, the 73rd rank Finn, is entering his third final hoping to go one better than his 2001 and 2006 finals defeats. Nieminen defeated his 2006 conqueror James Blake in the semi 7-6(5) 5-7 6-2 to advance to the final and will be looking to add to his lone ATP title in Auckland in 2006. Gael Monfils is looking for his first title of 2011 after coming through a tough three set match against Canadian rising star Milos Raonic. The world number number 10 came back from a set and break down to defeat Raonic 6-7(6) 6-4 6-3. The Frenchman is the highest ranked player not to win a title this year and if the Frenchman was to win he would go ahead of Aleksandr Dolgopolov in the World Finals race and into 14th place but is very unlikely to scrap into the field for the London event. The pair have met just the once, less than a month ago at Bangkok with Monfils coming through a close match 7-5 7-6(4).

The other ATP final is the first ever all-Serbian affair with defending champion Viktor Troicki taking on compatriot Janko Tipsarevic in Moscow. Second seed Troicki defeated Frenchman Jeremy Chardy 6-4 6-4 to join the top seeded Tipsarevic after he ended three time titlist Nikolay Davydenko’s tournament defeating the former world number three 6-2 7-5. The only prior meeting between the pair was in the Russian capital in 2008 with Troicki winning 6-3 6-4. A win for Tipsarevic will see the Serbian number two rise to number ten in the World Finals race and a good showing in the final tournaments of the year, particularly in Masters event in Paris, could see the Serb an outside chance of qualification.