World No. 1 Rafael Nadal will begin the new season that starts at the Qatar Open today on a high after beating rival Roger Federer in the final of the Mubadala World Tennis Championship in Abu Dhabi this weekend.
The Spaniard arrives in Doha head and shoulders above the rest of field, more than 3,000 points ahead of world No. 2 Federer and with three of the last four Grand Slam titles under his belt.
His hopes of winning the Qatar title for the first time have been boosted by the 7-6 (7/4), 7-6 (7/3) win over the Swiss in the final of the Abu Dhabi exhibition match on Saturday.
PHOTO: AFP
The two are set to meet again next week when they are the top two seeds at the Qatar Open, which marks the start of the new season.
“For both of us, these are the first matches of the season. So it is special for us,” Nadal said after his win in Abu Dhabi.
Federer, who has come into the New Year with a fresh mindset as he works with new coach Paul Annacone, is bidding for his third title in Doha after winning back-to-back trophies in 2005 and 2006.
“Rafael and myself must have played so many times and so many times it has come down to a few shots here and there. He is an amazing shot-maker. Me as well, but today he got the better of me,” Federer said.
Federer appointed Annacone, who steered Pete Sampras to nine of his 14 Grand Slam titles, after losing his Wimbledon title, as he bids to regain the world No. 1 ranking he once held for a record 237 consecutive weeks.
The next few days may offer insights into just how likely that is. Since Annacone’s arrival there have been signs that Federer is working on countering a fractional loss of speed as he moves through his 30th year.
He has been trying to reinvigorate his backhand, achieve a more consistent serve, produce crisper ground-strokes and most crucially, generate an appetite for attacking opponents’ second serves more forcefully.
How superb Federer becomes when he achieves all these things was illustrated by his meeting with Nadal at the ATP World Tour finals five weeks ago in London, where he concluded the season with a 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 win.
“I think in the beginning he was unplayable,” Nadal said. “He played unbelievable all week. When he’s playing like this, it’s very difficult to stop him.”
Nadal is happy returning to Doha, which he believes helped him turn a corner after he had gone without a title for 11 months last year.
“In Doha last year was probably one of the best sets of my -career, the first set against [Nikolay] Davydenko,” Nadal said, referring to an incredible final in which he took that set 6-0, held two match points and still lost to the Russian. “So the only thing I think is, be focused, don’t lose this dynamic, don’t lose that, because with that level I have chances to win in every tournament.”
As for the pressure of being the hot favorite, Nadal said: “It doesn’t make any difference if I have won three Grand Slams or if I won one or two. It’s in the past. When I start the season, everything starts. I don’t think if I have to defend 100,000 points or if I have to defend 1,000 points. In Australia or in Doha when I start the season, I have zero points. So we start from there.”
The two legends met only twice last year, have not contested a Grand Slam final for two years, and have yet to meet in a Doha final. All this should add tension to the possibility of it happening on Saturday.
However, world No. 3 Davydenko beat both last year on his way to the title.
The Russian struggled with a wrist injury last season and is now seeded only fourth, behind France’s Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who is making his debut in Doha, hoping to be fully fit after his campaign last year was marred by a knee injury.
Former world No. 2 Paula Badosa has withdrawn from this week’s Wuhan Open, organizers said on Tuesday, amid a racism row over an online photograph. Tournament organizers said the Spaniard had pulled out of the WTA 1000 tournament, citing a gastrointestinal illness, hours before her first-round match against Australian Ajla Tomljanovic. News outlets including Britain’s the Telegraph earlier reported that Badosa had posted a photo on Instagram in which she appeared to imitate a Chinese face by placing chopsticks on the corners of her eyes. The photo was taken last week in a restaurant in Beijing, where she reached the semi-finals of the
Shin Oebori coaches the Fukagawa Hawks youth baseball team in Tokyo, and he is very aware how Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani touches his players. “With Ohtani, the kids think everything is possible,” Oebori said, wrapping up practice yesterday on an all-dirt field set alongside a local Buddhist temple, below an elevated highway, and in the shadow of tall apartment blocks in central Tokyo. “Nothing is impossible with him. A dream is not a dream,” Oebori said, stepping out of the fenced practice field that keeps balls from landing on the temple grounds. None of the players hitting sponge-soft baseball has reached
CRICKET Azhar’s 59 leads Stallions Aashir Azhar’s blazing half-century guided the Taipei Stallions to victory over Taipei Super 11 in the Taiwan Premier League’s Group A at the Yingfeng Cricket Ground in Taipei yesterday. The Stallions were 102-3 and into the 12th over of 20 when Azhar came to the crease. He hit seven sixes and two fours in the 25 deliveries he faced to push his side to 171-5. Gokul Kumar was the star with the ball for Super 11, taking 3-17. In the reply, Deepak Vishnu outscored Azhar with 77 from 50 balls, but nobody else got past 20 as
‘GLOBAL PRESSURE’: LA’s Dave Roberts said that it was difficult to appreciate the ‘pressure on a global scale’ his starter was under ‘pitching for his country’ The Los Angeles Dodgers shelled out US$1 billion for Japanese talent in the off-season and it is paying off in the MLB playoffs. Yoshinobu Yamamoto on Friday outdueled Yu Darvish in a historic post-season matchup of Japanese-born starters, while the Dodgers got home runs from Kike Hernandez and Teoscar Hernandez to beat the San Diego Padres 2-0 and advance to the National League Championship Series. “It’s pretty sweet,” a smiling Freddie Freeman said. Yamamoto allowed two hits over five innings for the win, getting pulled after 63 pitches in a decisive Game 5 between heated NL West rivals who were meeting in a
RSS