It is hard to believe that the history of the Dubai tennis tournament totals 28 years: 18 years in the men's tournament and 10 years in the women's tournament. In any case, and individually, this is quite a lot. Dubai has long gone to the point of confirming its high international status in 2009 with the ATP 500 and WTA Premier 5 series. The 2010 tournament promised to be interesting: Federer, Djokovic, Murray and Yuzhny on the ATP tour, sisters Williams, Dementieva and Safina - in the WTA. In fact, it turned out a little differently, somewhat unexpectedly and somewhere - predictably.
The list of Russians declared for the women's tournament was much longer than the list of Russians declared for the men's: Svetlana Kuznetsova, Elena Dementieva, Vera Zvonareva, Nadezhda Petrova, Ekaterina Makarova, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Vesna Manasieva, Elena Vesnina, Alisa Kleibanova, Vera Dushevina, Maria Kirilenko and Kulikova.
It did not contain the previously declared second at that time racket of the world, Dinara Safina, who refused to participate in the tournament due to a back injury. It was this injury a week earlier that did not allow her to complete the match of the 1/8 finals of the Australian Open2010 against Maria Kirilenko. At the exit, 10 Russians entered the fight on the courts of Dubai.
One of the Williams sisters, Serena, didn’t come to Dubai, but she started well and “Williams” finished the second Williams - Venus, who won last year’s tournament. There were no Belgians in Dubai this year.
Petrova flew out of the tournament in the first match, losing to Swiss Stefanie Vogel with a score of 7: 6 (7: 5), 7: 6 (7: 5). Regina Kulikova, who played with her 6: 3, 6: 0 in her favor, took revenge on her Vogele teammate in the second round.
In the first round, Zvonareva beat Vesnina, and Frenchwoman Marion Bartoli sent Ekaterina Makarova home on Valentine's Day.
At the start of the tournament, Ioannina Wikmeier left the courts, who could not overcome Shahar Peer, who had recently returned to court. By the way, the Israeli woman Peer was under heavy guard all the way and played all her matches on the second court: the organizers were afraid to leave the girl unattended in peaceful Dubai. But the tension from the Arab-Israeli confrontation did not prevent Peer from reaching the semifinals, which she lost to Venus Williams.
Also in the first round, Kirilenko and Jie Zheng got out of the fight. Then, after the tournament in Paris, the champion of Dubai 2008, Elena Dementieva, appeared, which experts quite expected. In the second round, due to severe pain, Elena was not able to play the match against Slovak Daniela Hantuhova and was forced to abandon the fight. Reaching the quarterfinals, Na Lee starred due to an injury.
In the third round, Vera Zvonareva easily defeated the sixth racket of the world in two sets, the Serbian tennis player Elena Yankovic, but in the quarterfinal she lost 6: 1, 6: 3 to Belarusian Victoria Azarenka. Svetlana Kuznetsova, who came out in the third round to Regina Kulikova, led 4-1 at first, but as a result she lost and dropped out of the fight for the title of champion of Dubai in the third set.
That Kulikova this year attracted close attention. Beating first Maria Kirilenko 6: 3, 6: 0, then removing Kuznetsova from the road in the third round, Regina reached the quarter-finals through qualification, but could not overcome Agnieszka Radwanska, although she led at the beginning of the match. The reason for losing Regina in the quarterfinals of Dubai, experts saw in fatigue and pain from a back injury. If Kulikova was in better shape, she would have every chance to go further. In any case, Regina became one of the brightest athletes in the tournament.
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Venus Williams reached the quarterfinals on the same day, where Williams defeated the Russian woman in two sets. Also, Vera Zvonareva, who lost to Victoria Azarenko 6: 1, 6: 3, did not reach the semifinals.
Having defeated Agnieszka Radwanska in the semi-finals with a slight advantage 6: 3, 6: 4, Victoria reached the final in Williams, who very coolly sent out the persistent Israeli Shahar Peer, who also pleasantly surprised her with her game after the break.
Thus, in the final of the WTA Barclays Dubai Tennis Championship, the reigning champion of Dubai, Venus Williams, had to defend his title in front of one of the flagships of the new tennis generation, Victoria Azarenka, who made her way to the finals much harder than Williams, but also ended up there.
29-year-old Williams, seeded at the tournament under the third number, went against the 20-year-old Belarusian, seeded by the fourth, in a Saturday match, which lasted an hour and a half.
In a tense match, which Williamsstar then called “extremely competitive,” she had to sweat a lot to close the first game with an advantage. In the second game, the advantage of Venus became already obvious, but the sixth racket of the world from Belarus turned out to be a tough nut and even managed to come forward with a score of 4: 3. But for that, Venus has six Grand Slam titles to go ahead: taking advantage of the 10th game, Venus made a decisive break and won Dubai for the second time in a row, repeating the achievement of Belgian Justine Henin, also two years in a row, in 20003 and 2004, the winner of the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championship.
"I expected a good game from her (Azarenka), but her resistance surprised me. I definitely led in the second installment, but she didn’t give up. She played very well. I'm glad that everything ended," Venus told the press having received a cup in the form of a traditional Arab coffee pot, which became the 42nd trophy in her career. She also added $ 350,000 in prize money and 900 points to the WTA ranking, while Victoria got $ 175,000 and 620 points.
ATP World Tour / ATP 500 Category
February 22-27
The ATP Barclays Dubai Tennis Championship men's tournament this time turned out to be much more interesting, intense and unpredictable than the women's one. Especially, to the joy of compatriots and the frustration of many top players, the Serbs distinguished themselves here.
The tournament also began with the refusal to participate in one of the favorites - the first racket of the world, the Swiss Roger Federer, who managed to catch a lung infection and stay out of the competition for two weeks. Becoming the winner of Dubai four times, Federer this time involuntarily gave the opportunity to get a trophy to others, including the leaders of the Russian men's team Nikolay Davydenko and Mikhail Yuzhny. Health problems prevented the participation of the Argentinean Juan Martin Del Potro and the American Andy Roddick in the tournament.
Neither the 34th racket of the world Spaniard Feliciano Lopez, who lost the 128th position to the Austrian Stefan Kubek, nor the 16th racket of the world Frenchman Gilles Simon, who lost to the 24-year-old Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis, who was on the 36th line, could not overcome the barrier of the first round. After the first round, the Russian Igor Kunitsyn, who was on the 111th line of the rating, went home, losing with a score of 6: 2, 6: 3 to the fourth racket of the world Andy Murray from Great Britain, seeded under the third number.
Croatian Ivan Lyubichich entered the second round, having hardly beaten the 130th racket of the Czech Czech Jan Gernov in three sets. The second racket of the world, Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic in the first round, beat Spaniard Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, who was then in 47th position in the ATP. Also, after a tense struggle overboard, the Ukrainian Sergey Stakhovsky, who lost the 56th racket of the world, to the German Michael Berrer 6: 4, 7: 6 (3).
The first racket of Russia Nikolay Davydenko, seeded by the fourth, not without difficulty beat the Frenchman Florent Sera, who was on the 59th line of the rating. The cause of the difficult victory was pain in the wrist, which then did not allow the 6th racket of the world to reach the quarterfinals. Our Mikhail Yuzhniy, the 15th racket of the world, seeded under the seventh number, defeated Slovak Lukasz Lakko, the 60th in a starting match, went to Fau in the second round.
The shortest match of the circle was the duel between the German Bjorn Fau, who took 130th place, and the 514th racket of the world, Kuwaiti citizen Muhammad Garib. The match was stopped 12 minutes after the start: a Kuwaiti player received a wild card from the organizers.
The second round brought a lot of surprises. The main favorite of the tournament, Serb Novak Djokovic, willedly defeated his fellow countryman Viktor Troitsky, who occupied the 35th line. Quite expectedly, Davydenko dropped out of the fight, who at the 45th minute was forced to abandon the fight with the German Michael Burrer, to whom he lost the first game. The cause, again, was pain in the wrist. And quite unexpectedly, the 39th racket of the world, the Serb Yanko Tipsarevich threw another favorite from the tournament, 22-year-old Briton Andy Murray, beating him with a score of 7: 6 (3), 4: 6, 6: 4.
Namely, it was Mikhail Yuzhny who was waiting for him in the quarterfinal, having previously beaten the German Bjorn Fau with a score of 6: 4 in almost a two-hour match. The fifth racket of the tournament, Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who lost to the 26th racket of the world, to Croat Ivan Lubichich, also dropped out. It was Lubichich who presented a big surprise, beating Jo-Wilfred Tsong in a sensational match.
After all the difficulties, Novak Djokovic, Markoss Bagdatis, Mikhail Yuzhny and Jurgen Meltzer reached the semifinals of Dubai. Djokovic defeated Bagdatis in three games with a score of 6: 7 (2), 6: 3, 6: 4, and Yuzhny sent Meltzer home, defeating him 7: 5, 7: 6 (4).
The 2nd and 15th rackets of the world met in the final match on Saturday February 27th. It was the sixth meeting of tennis players in his career and the second in two weeks: in the semi-finals of the tournament in Rotterdam, Mikhail sensationally defeated Novak with a result of 7: 6 (5), 7: 6 (6). But Djokovic, who admitted that he was not in the best shape. He was determined to defend his last year's Dubai title.
A tense match, where Mikhail successfully tried to snatch victory from the Serb, was interrupted in the second set due to rain and played out on Sunday. According to Yuzhny, the seventh game of the decisive set, which he lost as he lost the SA match, ended with a score of 7: 5, 5: 7, 6: 3, was turning.
The seventeenth title in the career of Djokovic was also the second in a row in Dubai, like Venus Williams. In addition to 500 points in the classification of the APR rating, Novak received a prize of $ 383,000, and our Mikhail Yuzhny earned $ 180,000 in prize money and 300 points in the rating.
It is interesting
The first international tennis tournament in Dubai, now called the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships, was held in 1993 at the temporary courts of the Dubai Aviation Club. He was won by Czech Karel Novachek, who prevailed over the young Fabrice Santoro. The final match then had to be postponed for the day due to strong winds and rains. One of the journalists who covered the 1993 tournament accurately noted this in the heading "Players - from all over the world. Weather - from Wimbledon."
In 1996, in just six months, a new court was built at the Dubai Aviation Club, which became the center court. It is where the main matches are held today.
The reputation of the Dubai tournament, which has strengthened over the years, has made it possible for the first time to hold a women's competition in 2001 - the Dubai Women's Open. While Juan Carlos Ferrero became the ninth champion among men, the laurels of the first female champions crowned Martina Higgins. In 2008, the title sponsor of the Dubai tournament was Barclay Bank, and in 2009 the high international status of the tournament was confirmed by the assignment of the world series ATP 500 and WTA Premier 5 to it.
Most of all Dubai championship titles among men are Swiss Roger Federer, who became the first four times. Also, the Belgian Justine Henin, formerly known as Justin Henin-Ardenne, won the women's tournament four times.
The Russians became the best in Dubai only once: in 2008, Elena Dementieva defeated another Russian in the final match - Svetlana Kuznetsova.
