ATP Tour - Dubai
Today was an interesting day in tennis. There were a lot of matches but I only got to see two, while multitasking of course as who on earth has time to watch two matches in one day.
The first match was between the German Philipp Kohlschreiber and the Egyptian Mohamed Safwat. These guys were both new to me, have never seen any of them playing but regardless, it was a good match with an unpleasant outcome. Mohamed Safwat seemed to be the better player here, he had some excellent shots and won the first set to 6 - 4. His winning was fully justified.
The second set however was not that clear. They both played well but at some point Mohamed Safwat asked for medical assistance and the doctor applied an elastic bandage on Safwat's left tight and what came after that was nothing but struggle. He did not give up, not even for a second but his game was not as good as in the first set. Then Philipp Kohlschreiber won the second set and the third set as well, the last one to 6 - 0.
Personally I would have preferred to see a balanced match, a clean winning due to one of the player being superior and not a game where one of the players struggled to survive, due to an injury. This is a calculated risk, it could happen to anyone and today it happened to Safwat. I hope he's ok and will be playing again soon without any problems. he's a good player. And of course, I'm looking forward to watching Philipp Kohlschreiber play in the next round.
The second match was a very interesting one. Novak Djokovic got to play against the Tunisian Malek Jaziri. I didn't know Jaziri till now. Turns out he and Djokovic are good friends in real life, off the tennis court.
Without knowing Malek Jaziri I knew from the start who's going to win. World No. 1 playing against No. 290, this is an easy answer, but was still expecting to see a good, tight match, that did not happen today. 6 - 1, 6 - 2, that's what happened today. It wasn't even a match, it was more like a demonstration, like when Djokovic has shown the public how to play high quality tennis without the opponent resisting. It was high quality tennis from Novak Djokovic's part, I have to give him that and I'm glad Djokovic is in such a good shape.
Tomorrow is going to be an interesting day again. Marin Čilić, Fabio Fognini, Pablo Carreño Busta and
Stefanos Tsitsipas are playing, the last two against each other. I'm not going to be able to watch all the matches, I'll be happy if I can each the last one, but I'm expecting Marin Čilić, Fabio Fognini and Stefanos Tsitsipas to win.