Tuesday’s order of play at the Qatar Total Open in Doha was decimated by rain… rain again! The first batch of matches suffered two rain delays; seven hours after play got underway, the first and only winner of the day was Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. In a replica scoreline of their last meeting on tour in Moscow last year, Pavlyuchenkova beat Jelena Jankovic, 6-1 6-4 for a top-notch win. Pavs was *0-30 trying to serve out the match but other than that, it was pretty much drama-free!
I enjoyed this interview with Jelena Jankovic by Reem Abulleil. For the full story, click HERE.
Caroline Wozniacki and Kiki Bertens followed Pavlyuchenkova-Jankovic on Centre Court and managed four games before more rain set in. After a sluggish start, Wozniacki recouped the early break and the pair were tied at 2-2 in the first set.
On the outside courts, Lauren Davis won the first set against Roberta Vinci, 6-2 as she continues her excellent start to 2017. Daria Kasatkina made a bright start to her first round match against Irina-Camelia Begu, but was struggling when the rain arrived. The first set seemed to turn when Begu won a marathon seven-deuce game at *1-3. When rain halted play for the day, Begu was trying to serve out the first set at *5-3 *40-40.
This means that Wednesday is a thriller (SEVEN matches on Centre Court!) and an absolute nightmare for the schedulers. However, the forecast doesn’t look great for Wednesday… or Thursday… or Friday! First and second round matches are up on Wednesday, as well as first round doubles matches. This means that Kiki Bertens, Timea Babos, Daria Kasatkina, Timea Bacsinszky, Barbora Strycova and Elena Vesnina *could* all have to play three matches.
It’s an unfortunate situation but showcases the problems with trying to schedule the main draw between Monday and Saturday. Somehow, there just needs to be more contingency built into the schedule of tournaments…
Yesterday I mentioned about Sevastova’s racquet breaking at the handle on a crucial point in the second set… here’s the video for you via SuperTennis TV on Twitter.
And finally, Vesna Dolonc (née Manasieva), a name some of you may remember, has announced her retirement from tennis. Dolonc’s best result on tour was a win over Jelena Jankovic at Wimbledon back in 2013. Thanks to Dmitry Shakhov on Twitter for sharing news of her retirement.
Moo's Tennis Blog 
The tournament is a mess and play is very lackluster.
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Why is Sasha hungry to latch on to Williams’ friends? This dude is thirsty and desperate for attention. Caroline and Azaranka ain’t winning no Grand Slam title anytime soon, he just looking for a way to get paid..
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He came close to signing with Ivanovic back in 2011 when Serena was out of action. I think they’d have made a great pairing.
I’d be interested to know exactly what happened between him and Serena. She didn’t seem too thrilled when he paired with Vika.
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