Not Enough Appearance Money Dubai and Viva Las Vegas Tournament and Discussion
Apologies for starting late on this entry, had some things that I needed to do and as for Acapulco that will have a separate thread as we have the wonderful Michelle who is there at the moment having fun and have offered her to write about her experiences.
Onto Dubai what a surprise that Agassi has managed to make it to Dubai after all the injury problem. It would be cynical to say that the ball park figure of $ 500 000 appearance money wasn’t a factor.
The results well after a very close first set which Agassi won in a tiebreaker then he wiped the floor with Rusedski 6-0 in the last set and it seems for his large fee, he actually takes this tournament seriously, especially now there is one in his hometown that he forego cause of the therapeutic qualities of Dubai, he knows plays the winner of Phau and Galimberti.
Tim Henman with a crook back in all was still good for the prancing showpony known as Feliciano Lopez in straight sets. While I am far from a Henman fan, I don’t like seeing players struggling with injuries, but it showed he still had more than enough class for LaLo, who is going through a bad patch at the moment and if he doesn’t improve soon, he is heading south rather quickly.
Rainer Schüttler won a match for the first time in a long time against David Ferrer in 3 sets and even after having two breaks in the 3rd set, there was a chance he could throw it away. Ferrer who hasn’t been in much form at the moment either after his strong Aus Open showing and will need to get it together soon.
Blogger favourite Andy Seppi lost another close match as he has done a few times recently. He lost a tight 3 setter to Djokovic last week in Rotterdam and this week he lost to nemesis Igor Andreev in 3 sets again 7-6 (5) 1-6 6-4. That is a tough loss for him and maybe Seppi needs to develop a slice backhand and make Andreev hit low balls with that extreme grip he has.
Onto Viva Las Vegas a place that even by the standards of the tennis world would be called tacky. The big Russian Yevgeni Kafelnikov must be disappointed that there wasn’t a tournament in Las Vegas when he was playing. The question in this case is whether he would have spent more time at the casino or the training courts.
Not as many matches but little Lleyton Hewitt struggled to win in 3 sets over the geeky German Florian Mayer. I wonder if he will win the tournament this week as it’s not a strong field and Tommy Haas who was his section and has seemed to taken over the mantle of cleaning up in the American smaller tournaments away from Roddick, has pulled out of Vegas with a shoulder problem.
Other results were Jonas Björkman beating Monfils in straight sets and I look forward to seeing the sort of year Monfils has after his impact in 2005, he will be marked for sure and whatever happens will happen.
Phillip Kohlschreiber who hits a good ball, but not much in the tactical sense managed to beat the eternally frustrating Fernando Verdasco, this guy has a lot of talent, but he is more erratic than a Scandinavian summer and one can marvel at how many ways he can lose a match.
Hope for some good results in the week and any talk about these tournaments just use the comments section on this particular post.
10 comments:
Safin has won his first match back beating Davydenko in 3 sets. It's a good win for sure, but there are going to be some up and downs for sure.
Just no more injuries for Marat would be good.
Well I have to admit I wasn't really keen on watching Dubai. I would have preferred getting coverage of the only clay event available, but one can't have everything. And I have to say I have seen some really good matches. Or part of matches. Like Paulo taking a set to Nadal after a tiebreak. Or Federer having far more trouble than expected against a guy who was ranked 488...Mohammed Al Ghareeb. And Safin back on courts was really great to witness. Even if seeing him kicked out by that Belgian midget has been kinda frustrating, for various reasons. Anyway, he's got to come back, slowly but surely. I just like the hair btw...
Surprising semifinalists, Youzhny and Schuettler in Dubai. I don't think they get any or much appearance money there.
And for Las Vegas, may be this is the one that Hewitt finally wins again.
Thanks for the reports Choupi and that is better than the 10 min clips that I have been getting from Dubai.
Youzhny likes Dubai and plays very well there for some reason. He gave a Rochus a thumping and that's good to see.
Schüttler should now keep in the top 100 after this performance, though I doubt whether this will be a resurgence
Well, this was to be expected. The final in Dubaï will have a taste of déjà vu. Nadal vs Federer.
I saw both semis and I have to say that Youzhny seemed really tense, like a bit paralyzed by the event. Some great rallies and good shots though. But Fed is Fed....It was amazing to see how Roger was cool and relaxed.
Nadal vs Schüttler, that match was tighter than I thought. At least in the 1st set. Nadal was serving, at 4/3 for him, and Rainer, who knew he had absolutely nothing to lose, gave all he had and broke back. But this didn't stop Nadal. He took the 1st set 6/4. The 2nd set has been easier for him. Anyway, congrats Rainer.
Thanks for the report, Choupi.
Congrats to Nadal for his 1st win over Federer in a final. Haven't been able to see the entire match, as we only got a replay of it, and they simply cut the 1st set....
Anyway, what I saw really pleased me. The commentators were saying that Nadal had really been outplayed during the 1st set by Federer, and they were wondering how he would get out of this kind of lethargy he was stuck in. But we know Nadal has pride, and certainly won't accept losing a match so easily, so, of course, he fought. And this corresponded with Fed's game level decreasing. He was giving points to Rafa at times, and all this naturally led to a 3rd set. If there had only 1 part of the match to watch, that is the 3rd set. Because nobody could have given a name for the winner until Rafa finally stole Fed's serve at the end of the set. But even then, you never know. The crowd was just amazingly noisy. And that was great to see. Rafael finally won that final over Federer, falling down on the ground after the match point.
My special award for the chair umpire, for personal reasons...
Thanks for the report Choupi and it's good for Federer to lose. Why cause maybe some of his fans need to eat some humble pie and also it shows he is not invincible.
Congrats to Nadal for taking the title and can't wait for the clay season.
Interestingly enough, the winner-all market for the French Open moved after the Dubai Final. Roger and Rafa were tied at 3.2:1 on Friday and i saw quotes of 2.7:1 for Rafa and 3.5:1 for Roger. In my humble opinion, the match only told us that Rafa can also compete against Roger on a fast hard court. We already knew that he is the better player on clay and he can compete on slow hard courts. But i don't see any new information regarding their respective chances at the upcoming clay court season. By the way, the reactions at MTF were hillarious, it makes me regret that i was not following the forum during last year's French Open.
James managed to win his second title of the year, at the same time gaining his first career win over Lleyton. I appreciate his shot-making when he is on and he has improved his backhand a lot in the last year. Hopefully he can perform well at IW and Miami before his customary disappearing act for the clay court season.
Thanks for the comments everyone and the collective hysteria on MTF is very funny when Federer loses a match and then when something slightly out of the ordinary happens.
RG is a long way away and I happy for that and I am happy that Federer got his defeat now and Nadal gave it to him, maybe some people could learn humility (impossible).
Blake with his all aggression style wins a title, but he will disappear in the clay season, so he has to maximise what he has now.
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