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Djokovic and Wawrinka last men standing in Rome

By BarnaChesterman AFP - Sunday, May 11 10:01 am

ROME (AFP) - Novak Djokovic and Stanislas Wawrinka will emerge from all the fallen and broken bodies around them to contest the Rome Masters Series final on Sunday.

In a season when the ATP has repeatedly come under fire for its scheduling of the clay court season, in particular, the Serbian third seed and Swiss number two have found themselves left as the only men standing in the Italian capital.

The last three matches have all been decided by retirements leaving the victors well rested and the spectators more than just frustrated.

Wawrinka spent only about 20 minutes on court in his semi-final before American sixth seed Andy Roddick succumbed to a back problem with the score at 3-0 in the first set.

Djokovic played for a bit longer but he was 6-0, 1-0 up on Radek Stepanek, who the previous day had eliminated world number one Roger Federer, when the Czech decided he was too weak to continue.

That came only about 18 hours after Djokovic's quarter-final had been cut short, with him leading 6-1, 1-0, after Spaniard Nicolas Almagro decided his wrist was too painful to continue.

Some fans had paid up to 235 euros for a centre-court seat to watch the semi-finals. They saw only 10 one-sided games.

Just as Rafael Nadal had launched into the ATP, and in particular president Etienne de Villiers, for the schedule this year, Djokovic complained following his match.

In his last two matches he played only 15 games and will feel well rested on Sunday.

"We are all trying to make this sport more popular and better, we're all working for the good of the sport," he said.

"Especially the players at the top and the ones who are playing a lot of matches are not happy with the schedule this year.

"That's certainly a task to talk about because of the really tight schedule of the Masters Series events.

"We're all aware of the fact that the Olympics are making it even more difficult but this is something that we need to talk about in the future.

"I'm not criticising anybody but it's just very important to take care of the players because you don't want to have these kind of situations at big events, the players retiring in the semi-finals and the quarter-finals after one set.

"The stadium was not even full and suddenly one of the players retired so I don't think the tournament director or the crowd or anybody wants to see that."

Roddick, who had a long hard match against Tommy Robredo on Friday night before feeling a problem in his back, agreed with Djokovic that something needs to be done.

"I think it's been a concern for a long time about maybe the lack of an off-season," he said.

"But this isn't new, this isn't new that it's a packed schedule. I don't think we're reinventing the wheel by saying that there's a lot of injuries.

"I've been pretty fortunate in my career not to have had any really long-term injuries but I've also been pretty responsible with how I select my schedule."

The final sees the third seed and Australian Open champion take on a player who will break into the world's top 10 for the first time next week.

Wawrinka will jump from 24 in the world to at least 10th after reaching his first ever Masters Series final, and that after knocking out three seeds, with eighth seed James Blake and 16th seed Andy Murray also among his victims before Roddick (6).

Djokovic will retake the lead in the Champions Race from Nadal at the end of the week ahead of the next week's Hamburg Masters, where Federer is the defending champion.