ATP TENNIS NEWS – ANDY MURRAY WINS IN DUBAI AND RAFA RAFAEL NADAL LOSES IN ACAPULCO

Written by: Staff on 5th March 2017

ATP TENNIS NEWS - ANDY MURRAY WINS IN DUBAI AND RAFA RAFAEL NADAL LOSES IN ACAPULCO

epa05830398 Rafael Nadal of Spain returns the ball to Sam Querrey of the USA during their Men's final match at the Mexican Open tennis tournament in Acapulco, Mexico, 04 March 2017. EPA/JOSE MENDEZ |

Week of surprises ends with Murray taking care of business and Nadal going down to Querrey

By Ricky Dimon

Highly-ranked players crashed out of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Champions left and right this past week, but world No. 1 Andy Murray was not among them. The top-seeded Scot, who fought off seven match points in his quarterfinal win over Philipp Kohlschreiber, captured the title on Saturday evening with a 6-3, 6-2 defeat of Fernando Verdasco.

Murray dropped his first two service games of the match but a surrendered a mere one point on serve in the entire second frame of play.

“It’s nice to win and I played much better as the match went on,” Murray assessed. “I started a little bit slow, but I was solid. I wasn’t afraid to attack his forehand side. He’s got one of the best forehands, but I tried to move him around the court as much as I could. I defended pretty well and moved well. I served a lot better as the match went on. It was obviously good to win the first tournament here.”

“I think that obviously I had…if not the toughest opponent I can have in the final, then one of them for sure,” Verdasco noted. “He’s No. 1 in the world right now. It was obviously a really difficult final to win, but I came trying everything and giving everything. I said yesterday that being in the final of a 500 after five years is a great week for me and I have to take the positive things.”

Plenty of positive things happened for Sam Querrey, meanwhile, at the Abierto Mexicano Telcel. Querrey put an exclamation point on an amazing week with a 6-3, 7-6(3) upset win over Rafael Nadal on Saturday night. Querrey crushed 19 aces to Nadal’s one during the title match on the underdog’s way to a triumph after one hour and 34 minutes.

The 6’6” American’s run also featured defeats of David Goffin, Dominic Thiem, and Nick Kyrgios.

“It’s definitely a tournament that I’m going to remember for the rest of my life,” Querrey commented. “It’s just one of those weeks where I got in the zone and everything was working for me. I hope I can have more like this.”

He also had one last summer at Wimbledon, where his quarterfinal finish included a shocking third-round win over Novak Djokovic. This time Nadal was the heavily-favored victim. The Spaniard could not convert on any of six break-point chances in the title match.

“He played very well–almost reaching perfection,” Nadal said of his opponent. “I played under a lot of pressure because of his serve and baseline game. He left me with very few options, and the few I had he also played good. I have to congratulate him. I’m also very happy with my week and my game.”

“After the match against Goffin, I knew I could go far here if I continued to play at that level,” Querrey concluded. “My forehand and backhand were great and my serve bailed me out of trouble when I needed it. I felt like I had a lot of support throughout the week and everyone has been so kind. It’s been a pleasure to play here.”