Dubai Tennis Championship Magnets the Top Atp Players

The Dubai Tennis Championship which is one of the International Series Gold began last March 3rd in the city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. This tournament is among the ATP most recognized and well rewarded and most if not all the top ranking tennis players make their yearly appearance on the outdoor hard courts.

This year in particular the competition has surfaced many different feelings from fans and players as the most unexpected events have taken place and let’s not forget the competition will have a new master after Federer’s 4-year reign came to an early end. Top seed and world number one Roger Federer; lost in the first competition round to the Scottish Andy Murray; this was the first time since 2004 Federer was defeated in a first round match. The match itself was not what we are used to see neither the players were at their best. Nevertheless; Murray’s game has indeed increased and from the previous three encounters these two players had Murray is 2-1.

On the other hand, we have the American Andy Roddick who is currently world ranking number six and who recently ended his business relationship with long time Coach Jimmy Connors. Roddick easily cruised in to Dubai’s quarter finals and just yesterday played world number two Rafa Nadal. His victory of 7-6, 6-2 over the Spaniard showed us a more relaxed and focused Roddick who seems to be enjoying his game more than ever. He also took some free time to visit some of Dubai’s landmarks.

The 20-year-old Serbian – Novak Djokovic who was scheduled to first meet Marin Cilic moved to a second round match and played the French Magician Fabrice Santoro for a final score of 6-3, 7-6(3) and the possibility of a third match against Russian Igor Andreev who the Serbian defeated very easily. He now awaits Roddick in what promise to be an extraordinary game.

Two other Spaniard players have also had a good quality journey throughout the tournament. These are top seed number four David Ferrer and unseeded Feliciano Lopez. Against all odds, Lopez managed to breeze through and win over Ferrer who was favourite to move to the next round. It is just amazing how much their game has in common and how strong a player can grow if given the appropriate encouragement.

López then moved to the semi finals and played top seed Russian Davydenko world number five. The Russian who is indeed an intimidated opponent; has over a long period now faced many problems which accuse him of participating in a match-fixing scandal. This situation has indeed distress his play but yet he has something to offer his fellow sport men.

It is clear the city of Dubai will crown a new champion amongst either; Lopez, Djokovic or Roddick. If Djokovic was to win then it will be a guarantee his in on track for a higher ranking position than the one he already has. If Lopez or Roddick were the winners then the sport of tennis will once again show us all there is nothing previously written and there is always a chance predictions can shift at the last minute.

Race to Dubai in Numbers 1 — 18

The curtain of Race to Dubai down and Lee Westwood is the biggest winner. Here is the story of the memorable 2009 European Tour season from 1 through to 18.

Number 1: Lee Westwood who won two of his last four starts of the season to claim the Race to Dubai title. His consistency in the last half of the season was extraordinary: two wins, another three top three finishes and a total of 10 top nine finishes in 12 events from July.

Number 2: Rory McIlroy who in only his second full season of professional golf came so close to withstanding Westwood’s late charge for the number one spot. He topped and tailed his year nicely – four early top five finishes (including a maiden win in Dubai) started the season well and then he concluded with six top seven efforts in his final seven tournaments.

3 wins: Gregory Bourdy’s European Tour career total after claiming the Hong Kong Open in November. In doing so he became the first Frenchman to win in three consecutive seasons.

4 second place finishes: Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano’s 2009 season total. In April he was actually the runner-up for three tournaments on the trot: at the Estoril Open de Portugal, the China Open and the Ballantine’s Championship. He completed the unwanted but lucrative quartet in the Scottish Open at Loch Lomond.

5 matches: And a mammoth 126 holes was what it needed for Ross Fisher to claim the re-branded and re-located Volvo World Matchplay Championship. Using a Champions League style format, and moved from Wentworth to the Costa del Sol, it had some pros and some cons, but Fisher loved every second of it. He defeated Anthony Kim 4&3 in the final to claim the 750,000 Euro cheque for first place.

6 stroke victory: The largest winning margin of the season claimed by three players – Argentina’s Daniel Vancsik trounced the field in the Italian Open at Royal Park I Roveri, Sweden’s Christian Nilsson did the same when collecting the St Omer Open in June and – most impressively of all – Westwood did the same to the elite field in the Dubai World Championship on the final weekend of the season.

Double bogey 7: Oskar Henningsson’s score on his first hole in the Moravia Silesia Open. 71 holes later he was crowned champion, completing the transformation from Nordic League nobody to European Tour winner in less than 12 months. The Swede had become the first player to win all three stages of Q-school at the end of 2008 before his maiden tour win came, fittingly, at the Prosper Golf Resort.

8 under par for 8 holes: The best eagle/birdie streak of the year came from Spain’s Jose Manuel Lara. At the Moravia Silesia Open one eagle and six birdies allowed him to play seven holes (from the seventh) in eight under par.

9-iron: The club Argentina’s Ricardo Gonzalez hit from trouble on the final hole of the SAS Masters at Barseback. It was the shot of the season: having blasted his tee-shot through the dog-leg he was left in the rough, with trees blocking his view of the green. The conservative approach seemed obvious but he thrashed at the ball with the 9-iron, the ball soared above the trees and implausibly it landed it like a butterfly, a mere five feet from the flag.

10 players under par: At the end of the Ballantine’s Championship on Jeju Island in April. The conditions all week were horrendous – viciously windy and wet – and in the third round only Frenchman Francois Delamontagne was able to break par (and only 11 players signed for less than 76!). Thailand’s Thongchai Jaidee eventually prevailed after a three-man play-off.

11 under par: Rafael Cabrera Bello’s score when shooting a remarkable final round of 60 to win the Austrian Golf Open in September. He even had a 30-foot putt for eagle (and a 59) on the final green but settled for the 60 which helped him turn an eight shot deficit after 54 holes into a one-shot victory over Benn Barham.

12 years: The gap between Michael Jonzon’s first European Tour win and his second. The Swede finally claimed October’s Castello Masters by holing an 18-foot birdie putt on the 72nd green after having lost three shots to par on the previous three holes.

13 shots difference: Between Christian Cevaer’s final score in the 2009 European Open at the London GC and Ross Fisher’s winning total at the same venue 12 months earlier. It was a remarkable win for the Frenchman. Everyone agreed that the winner needed to be a long-hitter and yet the shortest driver of the week ground the big men down!

14 strokes: the number Stewart Cink needed to complete the four-hole play-off in the Open Championship at Turnberry. It was six shots less than Tom Watson required. Watson had defied Father Time for 72 holes, playing more like a 29-year-old than a 59-year-old. In extra time he aged visibly and played like a 69-year-old. Few said as much – there was so much else to say – but it actually put his 72-hole effort into perspective and made it all the more extraordinary.

15th lead after three rounds of a major: Is what the 2009 PGA Championship was for Tiger Woods. On every previous occasion – all 14 of them – Woods had won the tournament but Korea’s YE Yang stunned the world number one – and the world too. Not only did he do something no-one else had done but he did it in style: playing alongside Woods and beating him by five shots to earn a three-shot tournament victory.

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Dubai Tennis Championships

Any city which wishes to be up there with the most attractive in the world, needs to be able to call on some sort of a sports scene. It is no coincidence that three of the four major Grand Slam tennis events are held in arguably the world’s three most enduring tourist hot spots, with the US Open hosted in New York, the French Open at Roland Garros in Paris and the legendary Wimbledon championships a major part of London’s sporting and cultural calendar. A key element of Dubai’s sporting calendar is the Dubai Tennis Championships, played at the Aviation Club Tennis Center in the city and a major part of the warm-up schedule for players planning their assault on the new season in the aftermath of the first Grand Slam event of the year, Melbourne’s Australian Open.

The Dubai Tennis Championships are played on hard courts outdoors, much like two of the Grand Slam tournaments, the Australian and US Opens, and offers prize money far beyond any of the major tournaments, with the men’s singles winner earning more than US$2,200,000 and the women’s singles winner taking home slightly less – a clean two million dollars for the winning woman. Currently the reigning men’s singles champion is Serbia’s Novak Djokovic, while the women’s singles title is held by the USA’s Venus Williams. In recent years, however, the men’s tournament has traditionally been dominated by Swiss legend Roger Federer who, like the now-retired Belgian Justine Henin, has been triumphant four times between 2003 and 2007.

The tournament is a popular one among players, with the members of the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) voting it the best venue in the world for three consecutive years. The Aviation Club Tennis Center has been the home of the tournament since its inauguration in 1993, when it was founded as a men’s singles tournament, adding a women’s singles tournament eight years later. The Aviation Club features arguably Dubai’s best pub – certainly its best in the view of readers and writers of “What’s On” magazine – the Irish Village. The stadium court itself has 5,000 seats and is known simply as the Dubai Tennis Stadium. A versatile arena, when it is not I use for tennis the stadium is a popular concert venue having played home to acts such as Sting, Coolio and Bally Sagoo as well as boxing bouts.

The winner of the Dubai Tennis Championships can usually be expected to have a fine season ahead of them, with the record Grand Slam-winning Federer having experienced great success here and, in 2009, players such as Djokovic and Williams experiencing excellent runs, with Djokovic considered by many to be the most likely long-term challenge to World Number One Rafael Nadal. Venus Williams, a five-time Wimbledon champion and winner of many other Grand Slams, can pick and choose which tournaments she plays in these days, and routinely chooses to play in Dubai. The hard courts at the Aviation Club are reminiscent of many of the venues on the tour, with precious few choosing to host their tournaments on grass or clay courts, despite the latter’s association with hot weather, something Dubai knows all about.

What do you think the upset of Rafael Nadal will do to his confidence going into Dubai?

After his bizarre loss to Seppi in the 2nd Round of Rotterdam is this a sign of what’s to come in Dubai, IW and Miami?
How do you think Djokovic and Federer will fare?
thanks for all of your answers.

WTA Dubai 2010 – Final – Venus Williams vs Azarenka – Last Game

Venus Williams defeats Victoria Azarenka. 63 75.

Dubai Open- Djokovic Advances; Murray And Davydenko Ousted In Dubai

Andy Murray’s journey for the Dubai Open title ended abruptly when the Brit lost to the Serbian Janko Tipsarevic 7-6 (3), 4-6, 6-4 on Wednesday. That tournament was the first in which Murray participated since the Australian Open, during which he was upset by Roger Federer in the final.

Murray has never had an easy time with the Serb, who evened their career record to 3-3 and challenged a player who displayed not even a shadow of the skill seen in the Australian Open games in early January.

Murray entered the Dubai tournament coming from a long break and stated that he didn’t expect much from the tournament since he wasn’t well prepared for it. He wasn’t yet, he claimed, playing his normal game; instead, he was still experimenting on the court. There was much more serve and volley than there was aggression and big shots.

Tipsarevic took the lead in the first set and took the tiebreak 7-3. Murray broke the Serb’s serve in the first game of the second set, the Brit’s only break in the match. It was enough, though, to bring the match to a tie at the end of the second set.

In the third, Murray struggled with 3-0, trying to equalize. He failed to take five break points, costing him the match in the end.

“It was obviously disappointing to lose, but I tried some things out and I think it was a good learning experience for me,” Murray said. “I would like to have won, but it’s not the end of the world. If it was a Slam or something my tactics and my game style would have been a bit different.”

Nikolay Davydenko also left the tournament early, retiring after losing his first set against the German Michael Berrer because of a painful wrist. Davydenko claimed to have injured the wrist two weeks ago while playing in Rotterdam.

In the Dubai tournament, Davydenko stated that he first felt the pain in his wrist on Tuesday. The discomfort subsided briefly, and then resurged during the match against Berrer. The injury leaves his position in Russia’s Davis Cup tie, in which he was formerly the favorite, in doubt.

Defending champion Novak Djokovic was the only one in the top 10 that passed the second round.  Djokovic defeated fellow Serb Viktor Troicki 3-6 6-4 6-2. Djokovic recovered from being one set down against Troicki, who proved a formidable opponent.

Troicki broke Djokovic’s serve twice in the first set, in the second and ninth games. But Djokovic responded quickly, breaking Troicki’s serve in the second set and tying the match. In the third, Djokovic clinched a 4-0 advantage against Troicki, who tried to recover, but couldn’t overcome his compatriot.

“He (Troicki) was the better player in the first set and a half and I was struggling a lot,” Djokovic said. “He was serving well and the balls were going very fast. There’s a big difference playing at night and in the day.”

Djokovic will face Ljubicic in quarterfinals on Thursday. 

Tennis WTA Dubai Final Venus Williams Vs Victoria Azarenka who do you think will win?

Who do you think will win the Dubai Final tonight?
Im hoping Venus but Azarenka seems to have good form.

Atp Tennis- Djokovic Won Dubai Title For Second Consecutive Year

Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic won his first title of the season and his second consecutive title in Dubai after beating the Russian Mikhail Youzhny 7-5, 5-7, 6-3. The final match was suspended on Saturday due to heavy rain with the score in favor of the Serb, 7-5, 2-0. The game was resumed on Sunday and Djokovic managed an uncomfortable victory in the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championship.

During the game, the defending champion and second seed in the tournament reached only 52% effectiveness in service and added 5 aces. Youzhny broke Djokovic’s service five times.

During the first part of the final on Saturday, Djokovic played with consistency and his service was very effective. He won the first set 7-5. In the second set, Djokovic continued his game, making several great strokes and getting ahead 2-0. But heavy rain forced the match to an end, to be continued the next day.

In the resumed game on Sunday, Djokovic looked nervous and struggled to maintain his service. Youzhny, on the other hand, began by winning a wild second set, breaking Djokovic’s serve five times in that set alone. The Serb suffered, trying to maintain his serve, and on Sunday alone made 12 double faults. Youzhny took the second set 7-5.

In the third, Djokovic’s nightmare looked about to repeat itself when the Russian, ranked 15th in the world and seventh favorite, recovered with 3-3 after initially losing 0-3. But this time Djokovic responded, winning the next three games to close out the match with a 6-3.

The final, which between the two days lasted 3 hours and 21 minutes, illustrated the irregularity of Djokovic’s game. The fluctuations were present throughout the tournament, but they didn’t prevent the Serb from winning the seventeenth title of his career and the first of the year.

This triumph also allowed him to defend a title for the first time.

“This title means the whole world to me. Of course there are always people who are saying I can’t do it. But I’m playing for myself, and this is another success in my career that I wasn’t able to make in the last two years. But now, finally, I did it, and it’s a big relief. So in the future I just hope I’ll make a couple more of those,” stated Djokovic.

The loss in the final was Youzhny’s second in Dubai; in 2007, he lost against Federer. It’s also his second tournament final of the year that ended in defeat, as in Rotterdam he was beat by the Swede, Robin Soderling.

Youzhny couldn’t hide his frustration but maintained his composure.

“I’m disappointed because I lost, but I’m happy because it was a good level of game,” Youzhny said. 

Atp Tennis – Djokovic Conquers His First Title Of 2009 At Dubai

The current No.3 of the world and Serbian Novak Djokovic conquered his first title of 2009 by beating the Spaniard David Ferrer in straight sets 7-5, 6-3 at the Dubai Championship this past Saturday. This is Djokovic’s 12th title of his career and it places him closer to the No.2 spot of the rankings, which is owned by the Swiss Roger Federer. The No.1 of the world Rafael Nadal and the No.2 of the world Roger Federer, dropped the tournament before it started due to injuries, while Andy Murray withdraw in the middle of the tournament due to a virus infection that will keep him out of the Davis Cup as well.

Without these three great tennis players at the tournament, the favouritism for Djokovic increased as the results were appearing and he became the preferred to obtain the title after defeating the French Gilles Simon, who was an extremely difficult opponent in the semifinals. At the final game, people expected Ferrer to take advantage of Djokovic tiredness after the hard game the Serb had the day before against Simon.

Nevertheless, Djokovic seemed like he had more energy than the day before, taking the lead 5-3 in the first set. Even so, Ferrer fought back and extended the set which eventually the Serbian took 7-5. During the second set, things looked similar as Djokovic took a lead of 4-1, although once again the Spaniard bounced back and broke the serve to put things 3-4. However, during the next play Ferrer lost the break point and Djokovic closed the match with a final ace, which earned him the title.

After the match, Ferrer expressed that he was really pleased with his performance and enjoyed every game at the Dubai, especially the final which was a battle from the beginning through the end for him. Djokovic for his part expressed his satisfaction for his triumph and praised the incredible performance of his opponent David Ferrer, who was a hard contender. He also stated that this title and the performances he developed during the tournament gave him more confidence on his game and more consistency on what he have to do on every match. 

“It’s a special night for me and it’s a very important title,” said the Serbian. “I hadn’t started the year maybe the way I wanted or the way other people were expecting me to. But it’s more than that. This win in Dubai is going to give me a lot of confidence for the rest of the season. I am very happy,” expressed the 21-year-old Serb.

With these last results, the Serbian is looking forward to have better presentations in the following competitions, especially in the Davis Cup and the Indian Wells. The switching of surfaces (from clay in the Davis Cup to hard court at Indian Wells the following week) could affect the Serbian, but about this he says that that’s the way tennis is and representing his country is something special for him. He will try to do whatever he has to do to adjust his game to the different surfaces and play at his best. We hope the best for this great tennis player in his next challenges. 

WTA Dubai 2010 – Final – Venus Williams vs Azarenka – 2nd set

Some decisive points and players reactions in the second set of Venus Williams vs Victoria Azarenka.

Venus Williams vs Victoria Azarenka 2010 Dubai Highlights

Venus Williams vs Victoria Azarenka 2010 Dubai Final Highlights. Venus was just fantastic in this match especially the 1st set and begining of the second!

Murray, The winner of Miami Masters title

Top ranked Miami title winner Andy Murray conquered arguably the main title of his career to date with a directly sets beat of Novak Djokovic at the Sony Ericsson.

The British top number one hit third seed Djokovic 6-2 7-5 in Miami for his third Masters title, following gains in Cincinnati and Madrid last year. After enduring the first set in searing heat, Murray fought opposed from 5-2 down to clinch the second.

Murray said by expressing his opinion “The situation here are so hard, I know sitting there is hard but running around is attractive tricky too. He begun to come to the net many time and I misplaced my timing a little and I began to explore it a little bit hard towards the end of the second set.”

Djokovic prescribe: “He’s been playing terrific tennis in the last year or so. He was performing improved tennis than me in the first set. I had some opportunities to achieve the second set but unluckily I didn’t.”

Murray, who is 21, has also won and gained tournaments at Dubai and Rotterdam in a superb start to 2009, and now has 11 ATP titles, bringing him beside the career total of former British number one Tim Henman and closer to Greg Rusedski’s 15.

And the conquest in Miami is a substantial adding to the CV as it is regarded by many as the ‘fifth major’, in spite of moving no more ranking points than the other Masters 1000 tournaments. He had began the week in sight of overcoming Djokovic in the rankings, but Djokovic’s beat of Roger Federer in the semi finals ensured the Serb will hang on for at least a while longer.

Sunday’s final was played in the mid afternoon heat in Key Biscayne and both players were rapidly soaked in sweat and packaging themselves in ice towels ate every switch. Murray appeared the powerful from the beginning though, moving into a 4-0 guide as he ruined the Djokovic serve two times.

Whilst Djokovic was building many voluntary faults, the Briton was playing at the top of his game, a slam dunk smash followed by a breathtaking backhand cross-court pass helping him to 5-1.

Murray lost his initial set point in game seven when he went long with a return, but the struggling Djokovic handed over the proposal in the following game with consecutive unforced errors at 15-30 and the Scot sealed it with a smash. When Murray caught a smash at the start of the second after edging a lengthy game with a forehand pass, the world number four let out a scream of delight that signalled he was on his way to the title.