Saturday 27 February 2016

More tennis unpredictability

Normality in the tennis world is yet to return - in Dubai Djokovic lost the first set to Lopez, serve broken twice, before retiring with an eye infection. A run of 17 tournaments making the final is now dashed.

In Doha the 41 match winning streak of doubles dynamos Hingis and Mirza ended.  In singles at the same tournament, Garbine Muguruza failed to clear her quarter final hurdle and so there will be at least one unseeded finalist in Doha.

Nick Kyrgios defeated Tomas Berdych for the second week in a row and also in Dubai unseeded Marcos Baghdatis dumped the 4th seed Roberto Bautista Agut, leaving Stan Wawrinka as the sole seed left in the semis.

I am ready to give up predicting anything anymore !

Later... 

All the slaps on the back that Nick Kyrgios received after his Marseille breakthrough must have been a little too much as he was forced to retire with a broken back (maybe a little less serious) from his semi final match with Stan Wawrinka in Dubai. Hopefully it will be a short recovery and he will be able to fulfil his Davis Cup duties.  
There was some good to come out of the match - down 1-4 and two breaks in the first set, Nick fought back to 4-4 before the injury took its toll and he relented 4-6 0-3.  Wawrinka faces a rejuvenated Marcos Baghdatis in the final following his victory over Lopez.

Better news on the Tomic front as Bernie recovered from a poor opening set against Alexandr Dolgopolov in an Acapulco semi to eventually dominate 1-6 6-4 6-3.  Maybe it will be two titles in as many weeks for Australia ?

Meanwhile Aga Radwanska's consistent form came to an abrupt conclusion thanks to Carla Suarez Navarro in Doha with the Spanish number two handing her a thrashing 6-2 6-0.  The final will see Carla facing 18 year old Latvian surprise packet Jelena Ostapenko who won the first set against Andrea Petkovic before the German retired, a reason for match conclusions far too common at the moment.

Jelena is one to watch - her wins in Doha in addition to Petkovic include Kvitova, Kuznetsova (both dual GS winners) and Zheng (who had knocked out Kerber).

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