Swiatek eases into third straight Doha quarterfinal; faces Azarenka next
World No.1 Iga Swiatek extended her impressive Qatar Open winning streak by defeating No.14 seed Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-1, 6-4 in the Round of 16.
Novak Djokovic laid down an early marker to the 2017 season on Saturday night, winning the Qatar Open title after beating his nemesis and World No.1 Andy Murray 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 in thrilling fashion.
Recently deposed from the top of the ATP rankings, Djokovic showed he hasn't lost any of his desire to win and quite literally, fought for every single point, warming up for his pet Slam, the Australian Open, in the best possible fashion.
After dominating the first half of 2016, Djokovic crumbled in spectacular fashion and Murray took advantage of his rivals dip in form to go on a 28-game winning streak, which ended at the hands of his great rival on Saturday.
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Djokovic got to work from the first point itself, rushing to the net and dominating the entire first set, and even going extremely close to wrapping up the match in the second set.
Murray, however, fought back impressively to break Djokovic when the Serbian was serving out the match at 5-4, winning the next two games to force the match into a third set.
The third set was all Djokovic as the World No. 2 broke Murray at 4-3 and despite having lost his previous championship points, held his nerve to lift his 67th career-tour title. The match was remarkable for another statistic, as Djokovic is 20-0 against Murray after winning the first set in their epic rivalry, a truly telling fact.
Djokovic’s ex-coach Boris Becker had remarked that “Novak didn't train as hard as he should have and he knows it,” at the time of their split towards the end of 2016. Perhaps true, considering the man had spent a few years at the top and a certain amount of complaceny does creep in, especially when you have just completed a Career Grand Slam.
Well, we are now in 2017 and it looks like Djoker is hungrier than ever and that is bad news indeed for the rest of pack, Murray included.
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