Best of ATP Stars 2016
Best of ATP Stars 2016
Jan042016
The World No. 1 begins his season with confidence in Doha
World No. 1 Novak Djokovic required just 51 minutes for his first match win of 2016.
Djokovic, who has finished year-end No. 1 in the Emirates ATP Rankings for four of the past five years, cruised past qualifier Dustin Brown 6-2, 6-2 on Monday at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open.
“It’s been six weeks since I played the last match, so I was very excited to go back to the court and compete and see how I go,” said Djokovic. “Obviously you never know how you’re going to start from the blocks. You can do your best to prepare yourself well, which I did. I think I used the off season very well to train to get my body in the right shape, and I think it was a very good start.”
The Serbian is looking to capture his 60th tour-level title this week at the ATP World Tour 250 tournament. Since a loss to Ivo Karlovic last year in the Doha quarter-finals, he has reached 15 straight finals (11-4).
“I think the biggest challenge is, as it is in any of the previous years for me, is to really be consistent with my success throughout the year, try to stay healthy and try to maintain the high level of performance,” he said. “That’s what I try to focus my mind on.
“If I start thinking too much about certain tournaments, it can present a kind of a distraction to me so you try not to do that. I try to actually be as much as I can in the present and work my way through and effect whatever I can effect. That’s really working on my game, training myself to be strong and to play confident tennis. And I know as a consequence to that, the results will be positive, I’m hoping, obviously.”
Fifth seed Feliciano Lopez bowed out in his first-round match, falling to fellow Spaniard Daniel Munoz de la Nava 3-6, 7-6(4), 7-5 in two hours and 25 minutes. Lopez, who fired 24 aces, managed to convert just one of his nine break point chances.
World No. 75 Munoz de la Nava was playing his first tour-level match since March 2014. He next meets qualifier Kyle Edmund, currently No. 102, who struck seven aces in a 6-2, 6-3 victory over No. 43-ranked Martin Klizan.
Earlier in the day, seventh seed Jeremy Chardy lost just seven of his service points for a 6-1, 6-1 rout of Mubarak Shannan Zayid in 46 minutes.
Britain’s Kyle Edmund has beaten Slovakia’s world number 43 Martin Klizan at the Qatar Open to record the third tour level victory of his career.
The 20-year-old world number 102 – who had to come through qualifying in Doha – won 6-2 6-3 and faces Spaniard Daniel Munoz de la Nava in the last 16.
Edmund is preparing for the Australian Open, which starts on 18 January.
Munoz de la Nava, 33, is at a career-high ranking of 75 and beat fifth seed Feliciano Lopez 3-6 7-6 (7-6) 7-5.
Daniel Nestor is made to wait for his historic match win
Top-seeded Frenchmen Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut, who both competed at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals in November last year, saved one match point chance to scrape past Thomaz Bellucci and Steve Johnson 6-4, 3-6, 13-11 on Monday at the Brisbane International presented by Suncorp. Herbert and Mahut led 9/6 in the Match tie-break, before Bellucci and Johnson won four straight points to held a match point opportunity at 10/9.
Second seeds Henri Kontinen and John Peers denied Daniel Nestor his 1,000th doubles match win. Kontinen and Peers beat Nestor and Radek Stepanek 6-3, 6-3, while third seeds Lukasz Kubot and Marcin Matkowski overcame Jonathan Marray and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi 6-3, 6-4.
At the Qatar ExxonMobil Open, Teymuraz Gabashvili and Albert Ramos-Vinolas converted their second match point opportunity to defeat Spaniards Rafael Nadal and Fernando Verdasco 7-6(4), 4-6, 11-9 in one hour and 45 minutes. Nadal won the Doha doubles title with Albert Costa in 2005, Marc Lopez in 2009 and 2011 and Juan Monaco last year.
British number one Andy Murray says he would leave the Australian Open early if his wife, Kim, goes into premature labour with their first child.
The first Grand Slam of the 2016 season runs from January 18-31 and the baby is due in mid-February.
Asked if he would withdraw from the final in such a scenario, the 28-year-old Scot said: “I’m going to fly home.
“I’d be way more disappointed winning the Australian Open and not being at the birth of the child.”
Murray, a double Grand Slam winner, said the current plan is to compete in the Australian Open and then take February off to spend time with Kim and the baby.
He was speaking while competing in the Hopman Cup event in Perth, where he beat France’s Kenny de Schepper 6-2 6-2 in the men’s singles on Monday.
In the women’s singles, Heather Watson lost to De Schepper’s compatriot Caroline Garcia 6-3 5-7 6-3 to level the tie.
The British pair take on the French duo in the doubles later on Monday.
Grigor Dimitrov took the first step in putting a disappointing 2015 campaign behind him, turning in a gritty 6-3, 7-6(10) victory over Gilles Simon in the first round of the Brisbane International presented by Suncorp.
The 24-year-old Bulgarian claimed the first main draw match of the 2016 ATP World Tour season in two hours and six minutes, firing eight aces, while surviving six of seven break points faced. After fighting bravely to stave off five match points in the second set tie-break, Simon double faulted at 10-all. Dimitrov then closed it out on the next point. The Brisbane runner-up in 2013 (l. to Murray), Dimitrov is making his fourth straight trip to the Australian city. He notched his first victory over the Frenchman in five FedEx ATP Head2Head encounters and will next face either Viktor Troicki or Steve Johnson in the second round. Roger Federer looms as a potential quarter-final opponent for the Haskovo native.
In other first round action on Monday, Aussie John-Patrick Smith faces Denis Kudla, Benjamin Mitchell battles Tobias Kamke and rising teen Hyeon Chung duels with home hope Sam Groth.