Djokovic Tops Nishikori Toronto 2016 Final Highlights
Djokovic Tops Nishikori Toronto 2016 Final Highlights
Aug012016
No. 3 seeds earn third ATP World Tour Masters 1000 title
Ivan Dodig and Marcelo Melo overcame a rain delay and stayed the course against Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares to win 6-4, 6-4 in the Rogers Cup doubles final on Sunday. Starting their fifth ATP World Tour Masters 1000 final on Centre Court, Dodig/Melo were up 4-3 in the first set when rain interrupted play. The match was later completed on Grandstand court, where Dodig/Melo closed out their third ATP World Tour Masters 1000 crown as a team (Shanghai 2013 & Paris 2015) and first tour-level title of 2016.
“Finishing on another court was something we could not control, that we had to adapt to,” Dodig said. “But throughout the match we did a great job of that.”
“This is the type of experience we had at Wimbledon,” Melo said. “We often needed to go in and out of the locker room due to rain. We would have loved to play the whole match without interruption, but we are professionals and it’s our job to stay focused and to get it done.”
Both teams won over 70 per cent of second-serve points in the 69-minute encounter, but Dodig/Melo were able to rely on their first serves to dictate play. The Croatian/Brazilian duo landed 75 per cent of first serves and only dropped five points (31/36) throughout. They did not face break point in the match and broke Murray/Soares twice.
Murray/Soares were contesting their second ATP World Tour Masters 1000 final of 2016 after finishing runners-up in Monte Carlo. Soares is a two-time champion at the Rogers Cup alongside Alexander Peya. They won in Montreal in 2013, defeating Dodig/Melo along the way, and in Toronto in 2014.
Sunday’s win was Melo’s seventh in 18 FedEx ATP Head2Head meetings against countryman Soares. The pair is 10-2 in Davis Cup play and 82-56 at the tour level.
Dodig/Melo earned 1000 Emirates ATP Doubles Rankings points and $242,330, while Murray/Soares will split 600 points and $118,640.
World number one Novak Djokovic won his first title since his surprise exit from Wimbledon with a straight-sets win over Japan’s Kei Nishikori in the final of the Rogers Cup in Toronto.
Djokovic won 6-3 7-5 in a largely commanding performance.
The 29-year-old, who has now won seven titles this year, has beaten the Japanese on nine successive occasions.
Djokovic, who was beaten in the third round at Wimbledon by Sam Querrey, will represent his at the Rio Olympics.
“I don’t need to explain that every athlete dreams of being a part of the Olympic Games,” he said. “I’m competing in singles and doubles.
“Hopefully I’ll get at least one medal.”
Ivan Dodig and Marcelo Melo beat Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares to win the men’s doubles final of the Rogers Cup in Toronto.
The third-seeded Croatian and Brazilian beat the second-seeded Scot and Brazilian in straight sets 6-4 6-4.
Rain had forced a lengthy delay with Murray and Soares a break of serve down at 4-3 in the first set.
Murray will team up with his brother, two-time Wimbledon champion Andy, 29, at the Rio Olympics.
Meanwhile, the victorious Melo will play in his home Olympics alongside Soares.
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Frenchman will look to return to his dominating singles days
Julien Benneteau has achieved so much success as a doubles player on the ATP World Tour that it can be easy to forget how much the Frenchman also has accomplished by himself on court.
From 2008 to 2014, the 6’1” right-hander reached 10 ATP World Tour finals, including two per year in 2008 and 2012-2013. Benneteau has always finished as a singles finalist, but he’s never let that deter his singles or doubles success or his participation in singles.
This week, the two-time ATP World Tour Masters 1000 doubles champion (Shanghai, with Tsonga; Monte-Carlo, with Zimonjic) will again return to the singles side of play in his debut at the BB&T Atlanta Open. “I love to play in the U.S. The tournaments are good and very well-organized,” Benneteau said. “I’m very glad to be here for the first time.”
Benneteau wasn’t always pleased, though, when he kept falling short in ATP World Tour singles finals. “Keep going, keep going, keep going,” he remembers telling himself.
“Because sometimes after one, two of the finals, I was very disappointed. I was very low and in a bad mood, and it was tough,” he said.
He also encouraged himself to keep reaching the bigger stages of tournaments. “It was one of the things I told myself, ‘OK, it’s not this one. Give yourself another chance, another time’,” he said.
The Frenchman has followed his own advice. In doubles, Benneteau has won 10 career tour-level titles, including two ATP World Tour Masters 1000 crowns. He and compatriot Jo-Wilfried Tsonga won the Shanghai Rolex Masters on hard courts in 2009. Benneteau and Serbian Nenad Zimonjic won the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters on clay in 2013.
In 2014, the Bourg-en-Bresse native and current doubles partner Edouard Roger-Vasselin, also of France, claimed their home Grand Slam championship by winning Roland Garros. This season, they reached the semi-finals in Rome and the final at Wimbledon.
“I always loved to play doubles, even when I was younger so it’s natural for me,” said Benneteau, No. 37 in the Emirates ATP Doubles Rankings.
The 34 year old said his game, especially his return of serve, also might be better suited for two-on-two tennis. “I’m an all-around player. I can play a lot of styles, on every surface. It helps me a lot for doubles,” said Benneteau, who has won doubles titles on hard courts, clay courts, indoor carpet and indoor hard courts.
This week, Benneteau won’t have a partner with him on the court but he will have a longtime pal ready to discuss his matches. Antoine Benneteau, Julien Benneteau’s younger brother by four and a half years, now coaches Julien. Antoine Benneteau also played on the ATP World Tour, reaching No. 370 in the Emirates ATP Rankings in April 2013.
“Obviously he knows me very well. He always followed my career and my matches and he used to play so he knows tennis… he knows the [ATP World Tour], he knows how it works, he knows all the players, so he helps me a lot,” Julien Benneteau said. “Everything is good, and I hope now in singles we can have a good result to show to others that we make a good team.”
Simona Halep beat Madison Keys in straight sets in the Rogers Cup final in Montreal.
The Romanian, 24, won 7-6 (7-2), 6-3 to claim her third title of the year.
The first set featured eight breaks of serve before fifth seed Halep eventually breezed through the tiebreak against the 21-year-old American.
Halep, who also beat Keys in the fifth round at Wimbledon, broke again in the second set and never looked troubled thereafter.
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Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares beat home favourites Daniel Nestor and Vasek Pospisil to reach the men’s doubles final of the Rogers Cup in Toronto.
Britain’s Murray and Brazilian Soares beat the Canadian pair 6-4 6-7 (5-7) 10-7 in 97 minutes.
The Australian Open champions face third seeds Ivan Dodig of Croatia and Marcelo Melo of Brazil in Sunday’s final.
“Today these guys were just a little bit more solid,” said Nestor.
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The Canadians, who were teaming up at an ATP World Tour event for the first time since 2013, pegged back the second seeds from a set down but double-faulted in the third-set match tie-break to give their opponents the edge.
“They made a few more balls at the key moments,” Nestor added. “They put a lot of first serves in play in the match tie-break and played solid doubles.”
It is a second ATP World Tour Masters 1,000 final of 2016 for Murray and Soares, after they finished runners-up in Monte Carlo.
In the other semi-final, Dodig and Melo beat Florin Mergea and Horia Tecau of Romania 6-4 6-3 in 71 minutes.
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