Saturday, 5 January 2019

Bautista Agut stuns Djokovic in Doha

Day Six was semi final day in Doha and Pune and the upset of the year so far occurred.


PUNE 


ATP Semi Finals

Kevin Anderson (1) defeated Gilles Simon (3) 6-3 7-6(3)

Anderson exacted revenge on the Frenchman, having lost to him in last years final here

Ivo Karlovic defeated Steve Darcis 7-6(3) 4-6 6-3

Darcis failed in his attempt to make an ATP final for the first time since Amersfoort in 2008.

Karlovic is in his first ATP final since losing to Gilles Muller at Rosmalen in 2017.  

His last tournament success was the Los Cabos title in 2016


DOHA 


ATP Semi Finals 

Roberto Bautista Agut (7) defeated Novak Djokovic (1) for the second time in his career - the previous win came in the 2016 Shanghai Masters 1000 semis.

This win was extra special, considering Djokovic won the opening set.

The scoreline 3-6 7-6(6) 6-4, and the world number one couldn’t escape a third straight three setter this week.

Bautista Agut was a 3 time title winner in 2018, and has proved himself quite handy in January over the past years.

He won titles in Auckland (Jan 2016), Chennai (Jan 2017) and Auckland (Jan 2018), so it comes as no shock that he was competitive against Djokovic - winning was a surprise though.

Maybe this year the Spaniard can carry his form into the Australian Open, where he has made the round of sixteen twice but no further.

In fact he has failed to reach the fourth round of any Grand Slam tournament since Wimbledon 2017.


Wildcard Tomas Berdych defeated Marco Cecchinato (4) 7-6(6) 6-3

This represents a great comeback from a long injury layoff for Tomas, having withdrawn from Wimbledon last year with a back injury and not playing for the rest of 2018.  Ranking has plummeted as a result to 71 and accordingly he was granted a wildcard to the 2019 Qatar Open, where he has had success - 2015 finalist and three time semi finalist before this year.

He has taken full advantage of the wildcard, defeating two seeded players on the way to the final.

The last final for Berdych was Lyon in 2017 where he lost to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, and his last title came in Shenzhen 2016.

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