Tennis News

Following an excellent start to her 2015 season, which included title wins in Dubai and Indian Wells, and most recently reached the semi-final stage in Miami, Simona Halep was dealt a significant blow on Sunday when she was ousted from the Madrid Open in her opening round match.

Faced with the inconsistent game of French No. 1 Alize Cornet, many assumed that Halep would be victorious en route to the second round of the tournament. However, the Romanian played an off-colour match and eventually surrendered the contest in straight sets.

The former finalist at this event, who worked her way through a tough draw last year before she was denied the title by Russian superstar Maria Sharapova, was unable to rework some of that magic this season and once she lost the opening set tiebreak, she seemed to lose the remainder of her motivation. She eventually allowed Cornet to close out the affair 7-6(6), 6-3.

Cornet, who is ranked No. 28 and holds a 10-9 win/loss record so far this season, will come up against Italy’s Roberta Vinci in the second round of the tournament.

Halep was not the only player who was eliminated unceremoniously in her opening round match, as Eugenie Bouchard continued her disappointing trend with yet another first round loss, this time to Barbora Strycova. The Canadian was up 6-0 but still lost the match in baffling fashion, 0-6, 6-3, 6-3 to Strycova.

The bizarre seeded action concluded with yet another untimely upset, as Angelique Kerber had her undefeated clay court run in 2015 snapped unceremoniously following a three set loss to Samantha Stosur.  The German lost the match 4-6, 6-3, 6-3.

Following a disappointing exit in Stuttgart, where she was a three-time defending champion, Maria Sharapova began her run in Madrid in more promising fashion, as she defeated the in-form Timea Bacsinszky to secure her spot in the second round of the tournament. She will next encounter Mariana Duque-Marino for the first time on the professional tour.

Sharapova, formerly ranked No. 2 before suffering her surprise exit in Stuttgart, played a solid opening match at the start of the day in Madrid on Sunday, as she beat Bacsinszky in the rubber match to settle the score. Timea had won their first ever meeting last year but now Sharapova has overtaken her with consecutive victories in their most recent meetings on the tour. The latest ended 6-2, 6-3 after Maria struck 28 winners during the contest.

“Facing an opponent I’d lost to previously in Wuhan in two sets, and someone that’s been playing really good tennis this year, I knew this would be a tough match,” Sharapova said. “There’s no doubt about this and I was ready after having a good practice week,”

In a Herculaen effort late in the day, Mariana Duque-Marino rallied back from a bagel set down against Heather Watson to defeat the British No. 1 following a grueling third set tiebreak. She won the match 0-6, 6-3, 7-6(11) after saving several match points and battling beyond expectations. It was an exciting, albeit rollercoaster affair that brought attention to Court 7. The Colombian will now look to follow up on the momentum when she challenges Maria Sharapova in the second round.

This marks the first time that Sharapova and Mariana Duque-Marino will cross paths on the WTA Tour. While the qualifier produced a strong showing in her main draw opener against Watson, Sharapova is an entirely different beast and will be merciless in her dissection of the Colombian qualifier.

It was not the most outstanding of weeks for world No. 2 Roger Federer, but he was still able to secure his 85th career title on Sunday afternoon at the TEB BNP Paribas Istanbul Open.

The 17-time Grand Slam winner won his third title of the season following a straight sets victory against Pablo Cuevas. Federer stormed through the firsts set in 33 minutes but was slowed in the second set, where he fended off set point and required five match points to down the Uruguayan. In the end, he handed Cuevas his first defeat in an ATP World Tour final.

“It’s been a tough week; four tough matches,” said Federer. “I thought the final was my best one. I’m very happy. I’m very proud to be the first champion here at the first-time tournament here in Istanbul. In Turkey, I’ve had a wonderful week. On and off the court, I was able to visit the city a little bit, meet a lot of people, enjoy the crowd support and experience Turkey.

“It’s been crazy, in a good way, and I hope I can do it again one day. Right now, I’m just happy I was able to win the tournament. It’s always the best feeling for an athlete to be the champion at the end of a long tough week.”

Prior to his first meeting with Federer, Cuevas was undefeated in ATP World Tour finals (3-0) and on his way to a fourth. However, he was simply unable to secure his second title of the season. Instead, he took home 42,100 Euros for his effort.

“It’s difficult to face Roger, not only because of his game but also to stay focused on the game and not get distracted,” said Cuevas. “It was a very good experience for me, and I think it will help me in the future.”

In an all-Czech final at the J&T Banka Prague Open, Karolina Pliskova was able to reign supreme in front of her local crowd after defeating Lucie Hradecka.

However, the win was not an easy one for Pliskova, who had to rally back from a set down to earn the victory. She dropped the opening set but came back to win the match 4-6, 7-5, 6-3.

“It was very tough to play a Czech girl in the final in front of a Czech crowd,” Pliskova said after the match. “Lucie and I are good friends, we practice a lot together at tournaments, and we played Fed Cup together twice, so we know each other pretty well. I didn’t want to beat her, but I had to!

Pliskova withstood 17 aces from Hradecka and fired eight of her own to earn the victory. The win marked her 28th on the WTA tour this season – a tour high. This is her first title of the year.

“I’m just happy she was playing really well in the first set. In the second set I was serving at 5-3 and I didn’t make it, so I’m happy I could win the second set in the end anyway. In the third set she was playing really fast and serving really well, so it was tough, and I was having some emotions.

“But I’m just happy that I stayed calm in the end and I was able to make it today.”

Earlier in the day, the doubles final saw Belinda Bencic and Katerina Siniakova beat Kateryna Bondarenko and Eva Hrdinova in straight sets 6-2, 6-2.

Roger Federer moves into the top seed but will have it far from easy against an in-form Nick Kyrgios or Daniel Gimeno-Traver. Kyrgios had done very little on clay but made his first final while Federer comes in off a title at the new Istanbul tournament, defeating Pablo Cuevas for the trophy. Federer is a three times winner of the Madrid Masters tournament, although the first of those came when the event was played on an indoor hard court.

John Isner is the seed projected to play Federer in round three but will need to see off Adrian Mannarino for the third time in four meetings first before facing the winner of Thomaz Bellucci and Jeremy Chardy. Bellucci qualified after winning a third set tiebreak against Federico Delbonis. Isner notably has a win over Federer on clay, in Davis Cup action in 2012.

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga will look to bounce back from a disastrous straight sets loss to Marcel Granollers in Barcelona when he takes on Lukas Rosol in round one. He is 2-0 against the Czech, without losing a set. The most recent of those was last year where Tsonga won 6-2 6-2 6-3 in Davis Cup play. Jack Sock or Pablo Andujar await the winner. Andujar followed up his surprise run to the Barcelona final by having to withdraw from Munich down 1-4 in the opening set of his second round match.

Tomas Berdych made the final the year of the disastrous blue clay experiment, losing in three sets to Federer. While he may still need to beat the Swiss and Rafael Nadal to get there, the withdrawal of Djokovic opens up a route to the final if he can compete at a high level. Estoril title winner Richard Gasquet is the likely first round opponent for the Czech who has a losing head to head against Gasquet, on clay and overall. He will look to even those up at 2-2 and 6-6 to move into the third round.

In losing to Fabio Fognini in Barcelona, Rafael Nadal saw the Italian add his name to a very small list of players who have defeated Nadal twice on clay – both of which came in the same year. Doubts remain over Nadal’s ability to compete at the very top level and with each bad loss, it feels like he is nearing closer to the end. However, it would take some effort from the rest of the draw to ensure he doesn’t at least make the final here. He has made it on five of the six occasions since Madrid became a clay event, with the one failure on blue clay. The early rounds of the draw don’t seem too troubling with Simone Bolelli and Bernard Tomic seemingly the best to offer in terms of denying him a quarter final spot.

Once he makes it there, there are plenty of tough outs for Nadal. Fognini is unseeded here but might fancy his chances against Grigor Dimitrov, given that the Bulgarian was defeated fairly easily against a handy clay player in Pablo Cuevas in Istanbul. Stanislas Wawrinka will be the expected quarter finalist though and if they meet, will face Nadal for the first time since the Australian Open final. It was there that Wawrinka ended a 12 match, 26 set losing streak against Nadal.

Kei Nishikori would likely have won this tournament last year had his body held up, but it didn’t and he would be forced to retire in the third set of the final against Nadal. The fourth seed will hope to complete the job this time and has a handy route to the final with both Federer and Nadal not a possible opponent until the final. While not playing Nadal, his route to the semis is laden with his countrymen. An opener against Ernests Gulbis or David Goffin doesn’t look as frightening as it would have done 6-9 months ago. Roberto Bautista-Agut has not beaten a top 10 player in his last 10 attempts and is a life time 3-16 against the top 10. Bautista-Agut begins against the wildcard of choice from the Romanian tournament owner, Marius Copil. Thanasi Kokkinakis is a potential round two opponent for Bautista-Agut. The young Australian is now an impressive 13-0 in qualifying matches on the ATP tour this year.

Istanbul finalist Pablo Cuevas will look to continue his good form but has a tough ask in round two should he defeat Albert Ramos. The Uruguayan is set to play David Ferrer, who made the semi finals last year. After a stunning start to the year, Ferrer has begun to slow down and disappointingly faltered to Pablo Andujar in the Barcelona semi final. Another of Ferrer’s five losses on the year was to Nishikori, who was a winner in straights at the Australian Open. Fernando Verdasco and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez will seek to make it an all-Spanish round three match with Ferrer but it is likely that Marin Cilic will make it there instead. The ninth seed needs a good run after a shock loss to Victor Estrella last time out in Barcelona.

With the bump up to second seed, Andy Murray could be set for one of his unlikely runs on the surface he finds less than preferable. However, weather issues in Munich have meant his bid for a first clay title have been delayed until Monday which disturbs his preparation coming into this event. That final is against Philipp Kohlschreiber, who could be his first opponent if the German extends his head to head over Alejandro Falla to 6-1 in round one. Gael Monfils remains as unpredictable as ever but should make it 4-0 against Viktor Troicki in his opener to move closer to a round three with Murray. They last met at Roland Garros last year in a bizarre match that ended 6-4 6-1 4-6 1-6 6-0 in Murray’s favour.

If Murray falls early, look for Milos Raonic to continue his rivalry with Kei Nishikori if they both make it as far as the semi final. However, Raonic has not played for a month since withdrawing from Monte Carlo and Juan Monaco will be a tough test to begin for the Canadian.  Feliciano Lopez rounds off the seeds – he is 2-3 against Raonic while a potential quarter final with Murray would appear to be one sided on paper, given Lopez is an ugly 0-10 against the No.2 seed.

17-time Grand Slam great Roger Federer is through to another final in 2015, his first on clay this season, at the inaugural TEB BNP Paribas Istanbul Open. He will complete his first-time campaign in Turkey against Pablo Cuevas, who also had a solid week in the Mediterranean. This marks the first time that these two competitors will cross paths on the professional tour.

Federer secured his spot in the final of the tournament when he rallied from a set down to defeat Diego Schwartzman 2-6, 6-2, 7-5. He struck six aces and secured three break point to close out the match in one hour and 55 minutes. Overall, it was a valiant effort against an inspired opponent.

“I think what was important in the third set was to keep working hard,” said Federer. “I needed to put in a lot of effort to stay with Diego.

“Cuevas is playing very, very well… I think it’s going to be a tough match. Cuevas has obviously played a lot on clay.”

In one of the bigger surprises of the day, Pablo Cuevas thrashed Grigor Dimitrov in straight sets to oust the Bulgarian and secure his spot in the final of the tournament. He managed to secure five of six break points to close out the match 6-2, 6-4 in 65 minutes.

“I come from a small country, and I’m used to having the crowd against me,” said Cuevas. “Playing Roger tomorrow will be like playing Roger in his hometown.”

This is the first time that these two competitors will meet on the professional tour, yet it is still one that will likely favour the vastly more experienced Federer. The Grand Slam great is poised to secure another title for his collection but will need to topple a player who is a perfect 3-0 in ATP World Tour finals.

While he may have preferred some time off to watch the boxing superfight on Saturday, Andy Murray instead fended off two separate opponents that afternoon to secure a spot in his first clay court final. The Briton will come up against Germany’s Philipp Kohlschreiber, whom he has met on three previous occasions, including once this season already. Murray leads the head-to-head series 2-1.

The British No. 1 advanced to the final on Saturday following two separate matches that he was forced to contest back-to-back following a rain delay that washed away Friday play. First, he rallied to defeated Lukas Rosol 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 before beating Roberto Bautista Agut in straight sets 6-4, 6-4.

“It was a tough, long day,” reflected Murray. “The first match was tough and in the second one there were some long rallies but I managed to serve quite well. Winning matches helps on any surface in building confidence and this was my first week of play since (Roland Garros) last year. It’s been 11 months since I’ve played on the surface. With each match I’ll feel a little more comfortable. Tomorrow will be a tough one. Hopefully we can both recover well and play a good match.”
The German was also forced to play two matches on Saturday. First, he beat David Goffin 2-6, 6-3 6-4 and followed up by rallying back against Gerald Melzer 2-6, 6-1, 6-4.

This is just the fourth time these two competitors will cross paths on the tour, and will not be an easy contest for the British No. 1. He has been dealt no favours against his German adversary, who holds a win over Murray back in 2010 on this same surface. While Murray is capable of overcoming the tough battle, he will need to play a clean match-up and remain focused for what could be a long, grueling battle.