It was a wild week on the WTA tour at the Dubai Duty Free Championships which was littered with upsets as all eight seeds departed before the quarter-finals and without winning a match. Upsets always add an injection of excitement, but the loss of seeds this week was rather unnerving. The final promised drama but…
Tennis, why can’t you slow down? Dubai is barely in the books (Match Points coming soon!) and yet Doha is already on our doorstep with main draw action starting on SUNDAY. At least on this occasion, all the qualifiers have been placed so we know the entire draw. This post covers two first round matches…
The WTA tour moves from Dubai to Doha next week for the Qatar Open. As the two tournaments swap tier each year, Doha is a Premier 5 tournament with plenty of ranking points up for grabs. Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova have both withdrawn from the tournament, but it’s still packed with seven of the world’s top ten. I’m excited, as…
It has been a wild week at the 2016 Dubai Duty Free Championships; all eight seeds failed to win a match, a feat that had never occurred at a Premier event and hadn’t happened on the WTA tour since Bastad in 2014. After all the upsets we are left with a final to be contested…
The second of Friday’s semi-finals in Dubai pits Barbora Strycova and Caroline Garcia against each other in an Australian Open rematch. Strycova bagged a first win over Ana Ivanovic, 7-6(5) 6-3, in the last of the quarter-finals having failed to win more than three games against the Serb in their three previous matches. Ivanovic was a shadow…
The first of the unlikely semi-finals at the Dubai Duty Free Championships will feature the world number 21, Elina Svitolina up against the world number 22, Sara Errani. Svitolina had won just one match this year on the WTA tour heading into Dubai but has tripled that figure with another Premier semi-final appearance. Svitolina backed up…
Jeepers, what a day! After a long, long Wednesday in Dubai, the draw has been left with no seeds remaining. Simona Halep and Carla Suárez Navarro were the first two out on Wednesday with Ana Ivanovic defeating Halep (full recap HERE) and Suárez Navarro failing to capitalise on a set and a break lead, eventually going down in three…
On a rain-affected, yes, rain-affected day in Dubai, Ana Ivanovic scored her first top 10 win since last year’s French Open by ousting the number one seed and defending champion, Simona Halep, 7-6(2) 6-2. Ivanovic saved a set point in a super intense opening set that was eventually decided on the tiebreak. There were some great…
The Dubai Duty Free Championships had begun with a string of one-sided results and bakery products. The first of Tuesday’s night matches finally produced a three setter and with that, the best match of the tournament; Jelena Jankovic won just her third match of the year so far, coming from a set and a break down to defeat…
One-sided scorelines have been a feature of the 2016 Dubai Duty Free Championships so far. All six first round matches on Monday were decided in straight sets and the first two matches on Tuesday’s Centre Court schedule went that way too; Another breadstick-bagel result was in the books as Ana Ivanovic stormed past Daria Gavrilova, 6-1 6-0…
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