The Return of David Nalbandian

WASHINGTON--It's safe to say that David Nalbandian is pretty good at making returns.

In his first tournament since Monte Carlo in April, David Nalbandian is into the final of the ATP 500 Legg Mason Tennis Classic in Washington, D.C., drubbing fourth-seed Marin Cilic 6-2, 6-2 in Saturday's second semifinal.

The other players who have had the most success in Washington in recent years--Andy Roddick, John Isner, Juan Martin del Potro--are all booming servers, who take advantage of the extremely fast hard courts here, and win their sets in break-less sets that have to be decided in tiebreakers. 

But Nalbandian's dominance this week (and dominance is an understatement) has been built around his return, not his serve.  Nalbandian has won a mind-boggling 59% of his return games, an absolutely unheard of percentage.  For those of you paying attention will realize that 59% is well more than half.  None of the other three semifinalists has won more than 25%.

Against the booming serve of Marin Cilic in the semifinal (easily the best server Nalbandian had yet faced in this tournament), Nalbandian looked to be in possible trouble early, his serve broken in the first game of the match after several loose errors.  But he broke back immediately to level the set at 1-1, and soon earned a second and third break to take the first set 6-2.  The second set was more of the same, with Nalbandian breaking twice more for another lopsided set and a convincing 6-2, 6-2 win.

In the end, Nalbandian had won five of Cilic's eight service games, improving his already astonishing percentage of return games won during this tournament.

A win in Sunday's final (in which he faces #8-seed Marcos Baghdatis) would mean Nalbandian's biggest title since the fall of 2007, when he won back-to-back indoor Masters' Series events in Madrid and Paris, beating Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in both.  Just like this week's dominance has, that run also came out of nowhere.  Nalbandian was not seeded in either bracket, and hadn't made it into even the quarterfinals of his previous seven Masters' Series tournaments. 

Whether Nalbandian coming back from or oblivion, or facing down a bomb-serving 6'5'' Croat, the man knows how to return.

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Though momentum seems to be entirely his, there are a couple historical factoids pointing against a Nalbandian victory in Sunday's final. 

• Nalbandian is 1-3 in his career against Baghdatis, having lost their last three encounters, (the last of which was a straight-set loss at Wimbledon 2007). 
  
•  Each of the last four years, the player who played in the first semifinal (the one held on Saturday) went on to beat the player who played in the Saturday night semifinal.  Whether it's the additional rest, familiarity with daylight playing conditions, or mere coincidence, but Baghdatis could have the edge in that regard.  Nalbandian has yet to play in the afternoon heat of Washington, so it will be interesting to see how his sometimes suspect conditioning holds up.