Acapulco wiped the floor with Dubai this week in terms of producing high quality and competitive matches.  I had several gripes about the scheduling with five consecutive days of matches finishing past midnight.  However it didn’t seem to affect the quality of tennis and the crowds were pretty spectacular all week.  When the Murray-Dimitrov semi-final finished at 2.33am local time, most of the crowd were still there.  Here are some of my thoughts on a great week in Mexico.

ATP Acapulco: Dimitrov d. Anderson, 7-6(1) 3-6 7-6(5) (F)

This was a fantastic week for Grigor Dimitrov, who delivered a series of noteworthy performances to claim his biggest career title to date.  In terms of big wins, they don’t come much bigger than a third set tiebreak victory over Andy Murray in the semi-finals.  However in terms of proving himself mentally, victories over Ernests Gulbis in the quarter-finals and Kevin Anderson in the final were equally impressive.  In a pretty awesome semi-final with Murray featuring one of the rallies of the year (see below), Dimitrov couldn’t serve out the match at 5-4 and quickly fell 5-6 down.  It looked like he had missed his chance, but Dimitrov regained his composure and showed great resolve to pull out one of the best wins of his career.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Acm2kJzmVS8

This is amazing

I watched sections of his matches with Gulbis and Murray and was really impressed with his defence.  He has a wicked slice and his serve is a real weapon too.  I think he has a great game for the grass.  I cannot stress how rewarding it is to see one of the hot prospects really delivering on the ATP tour.  I am looking forward to seeing what he can do for the rest of the year because this win felt like a real coming of age.  Kudos to Anderson for another tremendous week, reaching back-to-back finals in Delray Beach and Acapulco.  Losing two epic finals, the longest in the history of both tournaments will be tough to take.  Like 2013, he has started the year very strongly after a last 16 showing at the Australian Open.

Other Highlights:

He didn’t win the title, but in my opinion, this was a solid week for Murray.  He got plenty of tennis under his belt with come-from-behind wins against Pablo Andujar and Gilles Simon, the latter recovering from a 6-1 5-3 deficit.  He looked knackered at the end of his semi-final loss to Dimitrov and I think that is understandable.  Physically, I don’t expect him to be at his top level yet with his off-season preparations being somewhat railroaded by the recovery from back surgery.

During February, there have been a couple of players who have really shone through.  Along with Anderson, Ivo Karlovic and Alexandr Dolgopolov have both done great.  Karlovic reached the final of Memphis and made quarter-finals in Acapulco including a first round win over John Isner.  Dolgopolov played a superb tournament in Rio last week where he defeated David Ferrer on his way to the final and he backed it up impressively reaching semi-finals in Acapulco.  I love watching Dolgopolov play, but he has always lacked consistency and intensity in his game.  He’s not the kind of player you can rely on to always perform, but these two weeks were very positive.

Best match of the week:

Dimitrov d. Murray, 4-6 7-6 (5) 7-6 (3) (SF)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3uBlJid_mw

Highlights from TennisProsHD2

WTA Acapulco: Cibulkova d. McHale, 7-6(3) 4-6 6-4 (F)

On this occasion, the men’s draw was a real winner and put the women’s draw into the shadows.  After a week of upsets, it was Dominika Cibulkova who came through as the champion.  The Australian Open finalist had a rough patch of form through most of February with illness affecting her in Doha.  In my opinion, this was a huge week.  The Slovak has always struggled for consistency and beating players in ranking terms, she should win.  Cibulkova didn’t have any top 50 wins, but the way she eased through the draw, whilst fellow top seeds, Kaia Kanepi and Eugenie Bouchard were upset along the way, spoke volumes.  By all accounts, the final was a fantastic contest and I am pleased to see Christina McHale winning matches again.  She never seemed to recover her form in 2013 after a bout of mononucleosis and had shown great promise in previous years.  Her quarter-final win over Kanepi was her best win of a career-best week.