Today’s Women’s and Men’s News (3/31) – Miami

Written by: Staff on 31st March 2013

Today's Women's and Men's News (3/31) - Miami

WIM82 - 20010629 - LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM : US player Lisa Raymond eyes the ball during her third round match against Belgian player Justine Henin at the All England Tennis Championships in Wimbledon on Friday, 29 June 2001. EPA PHOTO EPA/ANJA NIEDRINGHAUS |

Miami

Saturday

Doubles – Final: (3) Petrova/Srebotnik def. (WC) Raymond/Robson 6-1 7-6(7-2)

Raymond/Robson actually led 6-5 in the second set of this, and served for the set — and failed, and Petrova/Srebotnik took charge from there.

It is only their second title of the year, but they have both been pretty good: Sydney (where they beat Errani/Vinci in the final) and now this. They are 21-4 this year, and have won at least three matches at all their events except the Australian Open; they won two there. All of their losses have been good losses: to the Williams Sisters, Errani/Vinci, Mattek-Sands/Mirza, and Makarova/Vesnina. We currently crank out the WTA doubles race as follows (checking only the top teams and teams with premier titles this year):

Errani/Vinci………….4480.(7 events)

Petrova/Srebotnik……..3390.(6 events)

Makarova/Vesnina………2150.(3 events)

Barty/Dellacqua……….1400.(1 event)

Mattek-Sands/Mirza…….1197.(6 events)

Hlavackova/Hradecka…….502.(5 events)

Petrova/Srebotnik obviously aren’t threatening Errani/Vinci yet, but they could — if Nadia Petrova can ever win a Slam.

Lisa Raymond hasn’t won a title since she and Liezel Huber were victorious at New Haven last year. But she came here with a 6-5 record in 2013. This obviously helps a lot. As for Laura Robson, she had only five career WTA doubles wins, with four of them being more than three years old (she had one at Wimbledon 2009 and three at the 2010 Australian Open. Since then, her only win was with Watson at Eastbourne 2012. Her career doubles mark was 5-15). She has increased her win total by 80%. All she needs, it seems, is the right partner….

Miami

Singles – Final: (2) A Murray def. (3) D Ferrer 2-6 6-4 7-6(7-1)

David Ferrer came out using every trick in the book, and it looked as if it would be a very quick match — he went up 5-0 in the first set. Then Andy Murray won two straight games — only to butcher the eighth game, producing three errors and a double-fault to lose the set. Murray didn’t manage a lead in a set until the third game of the second set, when a Ferrer double-fault gave him break points and he converted. That break stood up for most of a set, but Ferrer got back on serve in the eighth game — and Murray promptly broke back despite complaining that the umpire was allowing Ferrer too much time. The final set began with six breaks. Ferrer finally held in game seven. Even that wasn’t decisive, because Murray then held. Murray then broke again, and served for the title. You can probably guess what happened next: Ferrer broke. And held, and Murray, after two and a half hours on the court, had to serve to stay in the match. Ferrer had a match point in that game, but he misjudged a ball, stopped the point, challenged the call — and lost. And so they went to the tiebreak. Odd that it was so easy.

For Murray, that means he finally passes Roger Federer to take the #2 ranking. And Murray doesn’t have much to defend on clay, and Federer has the Madrid title. It’s going to be very hard for Federer to move up before summer hardcourts. And that’s if he manages to defend his points from Madrid and Wimbledon! Murray looks as if he could be #2 for a long time to come. He isn’t likely to rise any time soon, though; he remains some 4500 points behind #1 Novak Djokovic.

David Ferrer was going to be #4 no matter what happened here. But this would have been the biggest title of his life, and might have positioned him for a run at Federer’s #3 ranking after Madrid. It doesn’t look as if it will happen now. He’ll probably be thinking about that blown match point for a long time.