Djokovic And Nadal Wow Huge Crowds In Acapuclo 2017
Djokovic And Nadal Wow Huge Crowds In Acapuclo 2017
Feb282017
World number one Andy Murray beat Tunisia’s Malek Jaziri in straight sets at the Dubai Championships in his first match for five weeks.
Murray, 29, was playing for the first time since his fourth-round defeat at the Australian Open last month.
Jaziri, ranked 51st in the world, broke Murray’s serve early on but the top seed recovered to win 6-4 6-1.
Britain’s Dan Evans also reached the second round with a 6-2 6-3 victory over Germany’s Dustin Brown.
Murray will face Spain’s Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, who won their last meeting at Indian Wells in 2012, on Wednesday, while Evans takes on French fourth seed Gael Monfils.
Second seed Stan Wawrinka made an early exit with a shock 7-6 (7-4) 6-3 defeat by Damir Dzumhur of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“I was not good enough,” Wawrinka told the ATP.
“I think I started well, but it was a tough match, missing a little bit something to push a little bit more to be a little bit more active. I think after coming back after one month out, I had to recover from the (right knee) injury.”
Fifth seed Tomas Berdych led 6-3 2-1 when fellow Czech Lukas Rosol retired with a knee injury.
Despite a first-serve percentage of just 40%, Murray was satisfied with his first match back, saying: “I was a little bit uneasy, I’ve never hit with him or played against him before.
“It took a little bit of time to get used to his game.”
The Scot had been laid low with a bout of shingles following the Australian Open, and revealed that it was his mother-in-law, Leonore Sears, who diagnosed the problem.
“I had a little bit of a rash from my bum round to my stomach,” said Murray.
“It wasn’t terrible. Normally if you have a little bit of a rash and you scratch it it feels better. With that it was really, really painful.
“I didn’t think much of it at the beginning, but it was actually my wife’s mum (who diagnosed it).
“We were having dinner and I said ‘this is really irritating me’ and she was like ‘pull your pants down and show me, it might be shingles’ and I was like ‘OK’.
“And then the next day I got the doctor and she was right.”
Murray, Berdych in night session action on day two
Damir Dzumhur recorded the biggest match win of his career on Tuesday when he knocked out World No. 3 and defending champion Stan Wawrinka at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.
The 24-year-old Dzumhur, who is currently No. 77 in the Emirates ATP Rankings and making his debut at the ATP World Tour 500 tournament, recovered from a 0-3 deficit in the first set en route to beating Wawrinka 7-6(4), 6-3 in 72 minutes. He will next play Marcel Granollers in the second round.
“[I was] not good enough,” said Wawrinka, who was playing his first match since the Australian Open semi-finals (l. to Federer). “I think I started well, but it was a tough match, missing a little bit something to push a little bit more to be a little bit more active. I think after coming back after one month out, I had to recover from the injury.”
“The first three games were in, like, six, seven minutes. He was playing outstanding there,” said Dzumhur. “Was just hitting every ball. I couldn’t even touch the ball. I didn’t have a chance to do something. So I knew that it’s not too much about my game. It’s about his day. If he’s going to play like that, he’s going to win, I couldn’t do anything.
“But I was hoping that he was going to go down with his level of game, and that’s what happened. I started to fight, to grind, and I found some way to play, to stay in the game. Playing longer points was giving me more chances.”
Elsewhere, qualifier Evgeny Donskoy beat fellow Russian Mikhail Youzhny, the 2007 and 2010 finalist, 6-4, 6-4 for a clash against seven-time former champion and third seed Roger Federer.
World No. 1 Andy Murray, the 2012 finalist, takes on Malek Jaziri in the night session, with two-time runner-up Tomas Berdych contesting the last match of the day against Lukas Rosol.
David Goffin’s Abierto Mexicano Telcel campaign is off to a blistering start with the Belgian easily accounting for Stephane Robert on Monday night. The fifth seed needed just 54 minutes to post a 6-1, 6-2 result to progress to the second round.
The World No. 11 in the Emirates ATP Rankings sent down six aces and never faced a break point in the pair’s first FedEx ATP Head2Head meeting. With two finals already under his belt this season in Sofia and Rotterdam, Goffin will face either Kyle Edmund or Sam Querrey for his first Acapulco quarter-final berth.
In an all-American affair Steve Johnson upset eighth seed John Isner in little more than an hour. Johnson broke his big-serving countryman twice in the 6-4, 6-4 result to book a second-round clash with the winner of #NextGenATP players Ernesto Escobedo and Stefan Kozlov. Johnson’s win over Isner drew the pair level on 4-4 in the FedEx ATP Head2Head series.
Earlier, another #NextGenATP star Borna Coric had few difficulties seeing off local wild card Lucas Gomez. The Croatian won 91 per cent of his first-serve points to post a 6-1, 6-1 victory. Countryman and third seed Marin Cilic or Alexandr Dolgopolov will be next.
Heather Watson moved into the second round of the Abierto Mexicano Telcel with a straight sets win over Bethanie Mattek-Sands.
The Briton double-faulted 10 times as she struggled with her serve but was still able to see off her American opponent 7-5 6-3 in Acapulco.
Watson, 24, plays second seed Kristina Mladenovic of France in round two.
Fellow Briton Kyle Edmund plays Sam Querrey of the US in the men’s draw later on Tuesday.
He hasn’t played a match yet, but Novak Djokovic is already happy that he chose to play at the Abierto Mexicano Telcel in Acapulco, where he’s making his debut this week.
On Sunday evening, hundreds of fans came to watch Djokovic practise on Cacha Central, the tournament’s centre court. The fans greeted him with a screaming ovation as he entered the stadium and cheered throughout his practice. Djokovic, who’s been a pro for 14 years, said he hasn’t experienced such a night too often in his career.
“I want to thank all the people who came to welcome me and to watch the practice session and to give me this amazing energy that I felt on the court,” he said during his pre-tournament press conference. “I am trying to feed off that energy and obviously play the best tennis that I can possibly play this week and hopefully have a good tournament.”
The 29-year-old right-hander is making his debut in Mexico. He accepted a wild card into the ATP World Tour 500 event last week. The Serbian will have to bring some of his best tennis if he plans on a perfect debut.
The Acapulco field features four Top 10 players, including No. 6 Rafael Nadal, No. 8 Marin Cilic and No. 9 Dominic Thiem. No. 11 David Goffin, No. 17 Nick Kyrgios, No. 18 Jack Sock, and No. 22 John Isner round out the top eight seeds.
“It’s very impressive. It’s going to be a hard tournament,” said Djokovic, who greeted the press corps with un poquito de español, “Buenos días a todos,” or “Good morning, everyone.”
The Belgrade native is returning to tournament action for the first time since falling to Uzbekistan’s Denis Istomin in five sets during the second round of the Australian Open. The setback was the right-hander’s earliest Melbourne exit since 2006, when he was ranked No. 76 and fell to American Paul Goldstein.
“I haven’t experienced the first-week Australian Open loss for many years,” said Djokovic, who has won the Grand Slam six times. “But… it’s kind of normal and expected to go through those times when you’re not playing as best as you can maybe, as best as you want to be, or maybe the opponent has an amazing day. It’s sport. You have to deal with it, and you can always learn much more from the losses.”
Per Djokovic’s high standards, the World No. 2 has struggled during the past seven months. He’s won only two titles during that span – Rogers Cup, an ATP World Tour Masters 1000 crown, in July; and the Qatar ExxonMobil Open in Doha last month when he knocked off World No. 1 Andy Murray.
In Acapulco, Djokovic will try to return to his form of 12 months ago, when he experienced one of the best stretches of his career. The Serbian won the Australian Open, the March Masters – Indian Wells and Miami – and then didn’t miss a step on the European clay, taking the Mutua Madrid Open and Roland Garros to complete his career Grand Slam.
Read More: Federer, Monfils Roll In Dubai Openers
“All in all, I feel that I’m in a much better state of mind than maybe I was at the end of last year. So I keep on going. I love this sport. That’s why I’m playing it. That’s why I’m here. I’m just hoping that I can stay healthy and as dedicated as best as I can be,” he said.
Despite his early loss Down Under, Djokovic still followed the remainder of the Australian Open. He, like millions of tennis fans around the world, was excited to see his friends and rivals Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal fight in the final.
“It was amazing to see… Roger win the Australian Open, at his age, after injury and after being absent for so long. It’s quite impressive. I congratulate him for that. He never ceases to impress everybody, and it was great to see a Federer-Nadal final,” Djokovic said. “I think it’s very important for the sport of tennis that these two guys are back in Grand Slam finals, winning trophies, because they are the icons of tennis. They have contributed so much to the popularity of the sport worldwide.”