A PERSON
The first tournament after the Australian Open involving Roger Federer has once again answered the question: who is the strongest in the world, faster and more accurate? Each sport has its own giants that are superior to rivals by head talent, but the case with the Swiss is special. No matter how much he wins, for a moment there is no feeling that Roger is full of victories. So the triumph at the tournament in Dubai became the next light dessert for Federer, and even the magnificent Mikhail Yuzhny could not ruin the meal of the first racket of the world in the final.
MATCH
In the quarterfinals of the Dubai tournament, a spectacular spectacle was organized by the second racket of the world, Spaniard Rafael Nadal and Russian Mikhail Yuzhny . At the beginning of the first set, the rivals took on someone else's serve, but later acted more carefully, bringing the game to a tie-break. Having gained an excellent form, Yuzhny quickly led in a mini-duel - 5: 1, but Nadal did not break and managed to play three goals in a row. The decisive moment came when the score was 6: 5 in favor of the Russian. The ball after his hit literally a millimeter touched the line, and Nadal demanded a video replay. The Hawkeye system showed that the ball hit the court.
In the second set, with a score of 3: 2, Yuzhny first made a major break, and then in a bitter struggle took his serve. It seemed that bringing this match to victory would not be difficult for him. The Spaniard was noticeably tired and also a lot of nervous. But the South turned out to be not iron. On his pitch with a score of 40: 0 in the ninth game, the Russian took eight match-balls to bring the meeting to victory - 7: 6 (7: 5), 6: 3.
SCANDAL
Attempts by the leaders of the ATP tour to make competitions more spectacular by introducing group stages fail. At the tournament in Las Vegas, because of the imperfection of the new system, the first scandal erupted. In the last match of one of the subgroups, American James Blake was supposed to defeat the Argentinean Juan Martin del Porto, giving up no more than five games. Otherwise, in the quarter finals went Russian Evgeny Korolev.
Blake led the match to a landslide victory, but with a score of 6: 1, 3: 1 del Porto refused to continue the fight, citing difficulties with breathing. According to the rules of the Asia-Pacific Region, in this case the result of the match is canceled, and the fate of the ticket to the quarter finals is determined in a personal meeting between Korolev and Blake. The Russian won, but a few hours after the end of the match, the Asia-Pacific Region made a special statement stating that Blake had reached the quarterfinals, to whom “the rules were not properly explained.” And only after colleagues stood up for Korolev (Marat Safin said that “the guy was just thrown,” and Australian Leighton Hewitt called the incident a swindle), tennis officials were forced to change their mind, and the Russian continued his speech.
VIDEO
The tournament in the capital of the UAE, Dubai with a prize fund of $ 1,426,450, the events of which were discussed above, really lived up to its high status and presented the fans with many beautiful moments.
THE WORDS
“In my opinion, this is unfair. The matches of the men’s Grand Slam tournaments are much more intense than the women’s, besides we often have to play five-set meetings. And after the Wimbledon grass you recover a month. Of course, I respect the weaker sex and am still ready to give in to it in everything, but prize money is a matter of principle, ”German tennis player Tommy Haas on the equation of remuneration for men and women at Grand Slam tournaments.
NUMERAL
The 41st consecutive victory in the ATP round was won last week by Roger Federer. If the Swiss does not lose in the next six matches, he will surpass the absolutely best achievement in the history of tennis (46 wins in a row), which belongs to the Argentine Guillermo Villas.
Andrey IVANTSOV