World News round up 8th February 2010

No sooner has the action finished in Melbourne than the ATP World Tour was underway again in no less than three continents with players battling for titles in Europe, Africa and South America.

Australian Open semi-finalist Marin Cilic continued his superb start to 2010 by successfully defending his PBZ Zagreb Indoors title. The top seeded Croat overcame unseeded Michael Berrer 6-4 6-7(5-7) 6-3 in a hard fought final lasting two hours and 38 minutes.

Cilic now has an impressive 5-2 record in ATP World Tour finals.

The world number ten began strongly with a break of the Berrer serve in the fifth game that proved decisive in the first set.  With both players dominant on serve, the second set went to a tie-break and it was Berrer who opened a 5-2 lead and went on to take the set.  In the decider Cilic crucially broke the German’s serve in the fourth game and served out the match at 5-3.

In Australia Cilic became the sixth Croat to reach a Grand Slam Semi-final after Zeljko Franulovic, Nikola Pilic, Goran Ivanisevic, Mario Ancic and Ivan Ljubicic.

Cilic now has 15-1 match record in 2010 having defended his title at Chennai prior to his superb run in Melbourne. 

In Johannesburg third seed Feliciano Lopez ended a title drought lasting over five years by winning the SA Tennis Open with a 7-5 6-1 win over Stephane Robert. 

Since winning in Vienna in October 2004, Lopez had lost his last three ATP World tour singles finals.

The 28 year-old Spaniard was making his debut in Johannesburg and came from behind to defeat top seed Gael Monfils 3-6 6-1 7-6(7-1) in the semi-finals to reach his sixth career singles final. 

After winning a tight first set in the final, Lopez roared away from eighth seeded Robert opening a 5-0 lead and closing out the match two games later.

Lopez reached his career high ranking of 20 in January 2005 and reached the quarter finals at Wimbledon later that year.

29-year-old Robert had never reached an ATP World Tour quarter-final before last week and in the semi-finals defeated second seeded David Ferrer 7-5 6-4 for his first top 20 win.

Notably in Johannesburg Dustin Brown became only the second Jamaican to reach a tour-level quarter final. The 25 year-old fell 76(5) 63 to Robert in the last eight.

The first clay court event of 2010 was held in Santiago and Brazilian Thomaz Bellucci took the spoils with a 6-2 0-6 6-4 win over second seed Juan Monaco to claim the Movistar Open title.

Bellucci is the first Brazilian to win the Movistar Open title since Gustavo Kuerten in 2000.

After dominating the first set Bellucci lost seven consecutive games as Monaco forced a decider.  The third seed recovered and broke for a 3-2 lead which he held onto for his fourth three-set win of the week.  In the semi-finals the 22 year-old came from a set down to defeat defending champion Fernando Gonzalez.

Bellucci is now 2-1 in ATP singles finals after winning the title in Gstaad in August 2009.

Monaco was appearing in his 10th career ATP singles final and has only tasted victory on three occasions.  The Argentine was also runner-up at the Movistar Open in 2008.

The Sony Ericcson WTA tour took a break last week while the 2010 Fed Cup competition got underway. Defending champions Italy, the Czech Republic, Russia and USA all booked their sport in April’s semi-finals with wins in the first round of the World Group.

The Italian team of Flavia Pennetta and Francesca Schiavone came from behind in Kharkiv to defeat Ukraine 4-1 and move through to their fourth semi-final in five years.  They will play host to the Czech Republic in April after the Czech team defeated Germany 3-2 with Lucie Hradecka and Kveta Peschke comfortably winning the deciding doubles rubber.

Eighteen year-old US Open quarter-finalist Melanie Oudin led the USA to a 4-1 away win over France with straight sets victories over Julie Coin and Pauline Parmentier.   In April the USA will host four-time Champions Russia.

In the match of the round the Russian team of Svetlana Kuznetsova and Alisa Kleybanova defeated World Group debutants Serbia – represented by Jelena Jankovic and Ana Ivanovic – 3-2 in Belgrade.

The Russians were close to opening a 2-0 lead on the opening day after Kuznetsova had defeated Ivanovic and Kleybanova lead Jankovic 6-4 4-1 and held points for a 5-1 advantage.  From that perilous position the Serb produced a stirring fight back winning 11 straight games to level the tie.

Day two saw Jankovic put Serbia into the lead with a 6-3 4-6 6-3 win over Kuznetsova before Kleybanova saw off Ivanovic 6-2 6-3 to set up the deciding doubles.  With both teams nominating the singles players it was the Russians who emerged victorious with a 6-1 6-4 win.

In World Group II Australia, Belgium, Estonia and Slovak Republic all claimed wins to progress to reach the World Group play-offs in April.

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