Oh my days. Following Lucie Safarova‘s second round match in Dubai on the live scoreboard nearly destroyed me. After two hours and 52 minutes, Lucie defeated Casey Dellacqua, 6-7(6) 7-6(4) 7-5. Dellacqua had served for the match in the second set and came within two points of the win on multiple occasions. I expected Lucie to win this in straight sets but based on how it went, I think she did really well to close out the match. It always felt like Casey was marginally ahead and Lucie was not taking any of her opportunities. When Lucie broke to go up *6-5 in the third set, I expected the worst. Lucie quickly went *0-30 down, opening with a double fault… however she won the next FOUR points to close out the match. It was Lucie’s first three set win of the year and it should give her a nice confidence boost going forward. These kind of wins are the most satisfying…
In the third round, Lucie will play the defending Dubai champion, Venus Williams. In fact, Venus has won 16 straight matches in Dubai (title runs in 2009, 2010 and 2014) and hasn’t dropped a set in her last two visits. On Monday, Venus produced a superb display to defeat Belinda Bencic in straight sets, 6-1 6-2. If you missed the match, I recapped the first of the second round matches on Moo’s Tennis Blog HERE.
Venus leads the head-to-head 4-1 against Lucie; going in Lucie’s favour is that she did win their last match in Cincy, 6-7(7) 6-3 6-4. I remember this one clearly… Lucie thought she had wrapped up the win only for a hawkeye challenge to thwart her. She wobbled a little, but closed out the match at the second time of asking. It has to be said though that Venus was coming into this match off the back of a mentally and physically draining run to the final in Canada. As much as i’ll be rooting for Lucie, this is a very tough match-up and I think Venus is going to be tough to stop this week in Dubai. Furthermore, Lucie could be tired after she was on court for nearly three hours in singles and then played doubles with Karolina Pliskova in the evening.
Prediction: V.Williams d. Safarova in 2 sets
Moo's Tennis Blog 
I don’t see how Venus could lose this one. Bit sometimes complacency is a bitch and Lucie has no expectations or pressure.
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Halep on FIRE!!
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Simona looked happy and confident out there. It helped that Dani was a bit cream-crackered but, all the same, Simona’s FH looked like it again had a bit more of the pop that we last saw in Shenzhen, and she used her BH to good effect pinning Dani behind the baseline with consistently good depth on her shots off that wing.
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Yeah, I almost doubted my prediction for a Halep win, but that was restored quite quickly. Her only threat to reaching the final is Makarova, what with Wozniacki looking out of sorts.
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I see we went through the same emotions today lol. I crashed my ATP WTA Live score app on my phone because I kept refreshing, out of stress, especially in the second set when Lucie had something like 4-5 break points before she finally reached the tie-break ! lol. I didn’t expect such a battle when facing Casey, but I didn’t see the match either so…
I’m always on Lucie’s side but indeed I’m getting ready to see Venus come through… Lucie has first to recover from today and I think she’ll be tired for sure tomorrow. Also, she’s quite inconsistent this year, including mentally, she can go from the best to the worst, from one day to the other.
But it’s also because she is so unpredictable that she still has a chance… As you mentioned, she won their last match (I also remember it very well, oh the nerves !) so she knows it is possible for her to beat her. And also she almost managed to win against Serena in the hopman cup, so I’d like to think that she believes in herself more than before.
Either way, I really wish she fights until the last point and puts up a real battle. GO LUCIE !
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I’m sure Lucie will give it her all! I agree, she has been inconsistent this year. I watched highlights of her match with Pliskova from Antwerp and she played so well in the first set. Belief is still an issue, but today’s win was encouraging considering she was on the brink of defeat.
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Btw – I still really love this pic you took of her !
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It’s one of my favourite pictures too 🙂
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Venus will this match. On the other hand, prove me wrong because I don’t think Halep can win this title. Her statistics did not show her usual self (i.e. less than 45% first serve like Fed Cup). If Halep can’t win any Slam in these two years, her time is up. I see many can beat hear consistently, such as Muguruza, Keys, Elina…etc.
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Sorry “her” != “hear”
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Where did those performances come from?!? Safarova superb from start to finish. Venus poor from beginning to end. Didn’t think Safarova would have the belief and nerve to take down Venus here. How wrong I was. Well played Lucie. Had a lot of help though.
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I agree. I was super impressed by how she held her nerve. Looks like she’ll get a rematch with Pliskova next…
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I definitely fancy Lucie in that one if she gets near to her level from today. Pliskova was very hit and miss against Ivanovic and if Safarova is as strong behind serve as she was today and hits as cleanly she will have lots of chances to do what she couldn’t in Antwerp. Unless Pliskova serves a superb match of course, but I think there are likely to be dips
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