- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
A week out from the 2017 Australian Open, some of the big names have kicked off the new season in style, with Karolina Pliskova and Grigor Dimitrov winning in Brisbane and Novak Djokovic in Doha, while France claimed the Hopman Cup for the second time in four years.
In Brisbane, Pliskova claimed her seventh career title in a landslide win over Alize Cornet, while Grigor Dimitrov took out the men’s title to claim his first title since triumphing at Queen’s in 2014.
Sir Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic picked up where they left off at the end of last season, clashing in the first men’s final of the new season in Doha, while at the Hopman Cup in Perth, France tasted success for the second time in four years.
Here is a summary from each tournament of how the championship matches were played out, and how the titles were won.
Men’s final: Grigor Dimitrov (BUL) defeated Kei Nishikori (JPN) 6-2, 2-6, 6-3
Women’s final: Karolina Pliskova (CZE) defeated Alize Cornet (FRA) 6-0, 6-3
In the women’s final on Saturday night, third seed Karolina Pliskova confirmed her Australian Open credentials when she thrashed Alize Cornet for the loss of just three games to claim her seventh career title in Brisbane.
The Czech is looking to back up a breakthrough season in which she served the most aces of any woman and defeated both Serena and Venus Williams en route to reaching the US Open final, where she lost to Angelique Kerber.
She won 24 out of 29 points and did not concede a single game in the first set, which lasted just 18 minutes. Moreover, she did not face a single break point for the entire match.
Cornet did show some fight in the second set, winning the opening game of the second set, but would continue to be kept on the back foot by last year’s US Open finalist, who claimed victory by breaking the Frenchwoman at 5-3*.
The win means Pliskova will be the fifth seed at the Australian Open, where her best results have been a pair of third round showings in each of the past two years. On both occasions, she lost to Russian Ekaterina Makarova.
Having originally been scheduled to play in Sydney this week, the 24-year-old has withdrawn from the tournament, citing a thigh injury. Instead, she will head straight to Melbourne to prepare for the first Grand Slam tournament of the year.
Cornet, whose run to the final included the scalp of second seed Dominika Cibulkova, has also withdrawn from her final warm-up tournament in Hobart, where she was the defending champion, citing fatigue.
In contrast to the embarrassingly one-sided women’s final, the men’s decider proved to be a more entertaining and closer affair, with Grigor Dimitrov and Kei Nishikori battling it out for nearly three hours on Sunday night.
Entering the final, Dimitrov had not won a title since mid-2014, when a title at Queen’s preceded his run to the semi-finals at Wimbledon, and had never defeated his Japanese rival in three previous attempts, winning only one set.
After a tense opening to the match, the Bulgarian broke twice to take the opening set 6-2, but Nishikori would do the same in the second to level the match at one set all before taking a medical time-out prior to the start of the deciding set.
Dimitrov would use the time-out to regain his momentum and a couple of errors from Nishikori would see him broken in the eighth game, leaving the former Wimbledon semi-finalist to serve for the championship at 5-3.
The seventh seed wasted no time in serving out the win, holding to love to claim his first title in two-and-a-half years and raise hopes of a career revival, finishing last season in the top 20 despite enduring a second consecutive title-less season.
The world’s top two men, Sir Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic, picked up where they left off last season by clashing in the first men’s decider of the 2017 season.
The two men engaged in a year-long battle for the world number one ranking in the second half of last year, with Murray overhauling his Serbian rival to finally claim top spot for the first time upon winning the Paris Masters last November.
He finished the year on a 24-match winning streak, during which he won five titles including the lucrative ATP World Tour Finals in London, and more ominously, defeated his fellow top-five rivals to claim that season finale.
The Scot, who was knighted in the 2017 New Years honours for his services to tennis and charity, extended his unbeaten run to 28 matches to set up a blockbuster championship decider against the man he dethroned at the top of the ATP rankings, Novak Djokovic, who is still world number two by a clear margin.
En route to the final, he defeated Jeremy Chardy, Gerald Melzer, Nicolas Almagro and Tomas Berdych, all in straight sets, despite being pushed to a tiebreak in three of his four matches.
Djokovic, meanwhile, reached the final after saving five match points in the second set of his semi-final against Fernando Verdasco.
That followed straightforward victories over Jan-Lennard Struff, Horacio Zeballos and Radek Stepanek.
The championship match delivered what many expected – high-octane tennis from two players who have clearly dominated over the past 12 months.
The Serb, whose poor second half of 2016 cost him his place at the summit of the rankings, took the first set 6-3 and served for the match at 5-3 in the second, but Murray would reel off four games in a row to take the match to a deciding set.
At this point, history favoured Djokovic, who has won every time he has won the opening set against Murray, and that did not change when he took the deciding set 6-4 to conclude a match that lasted six minutes short of three hours.
Despite the defeat, which ended his 28-match winning streak, Murray actually increased his lead over Djokovic at the top of the rankings by 150 points, as he did not play in the tournament last year. The Serb, on the other hand, was the defending champion and thus could not earn any fresh rankings points.
If that final was anything to go by, then the men could once again be duking it out for the Norman Brookes Challenge Cup at Melbourne Park on January 29.
Final: Novak Djokovic (SRB) defeated Sir Andy Murray (GBR) 6-3, 5-7, 6-4
In Perth, France claimed their second Hopman Cup title in four years by defeating the United States by two rubbers to one.
Richard Gasquet, thrashed by Roger Federer on Friday night, kicked off proceedings against Jack Sock and claimed victory in two-and-a-half hours after breaking Sock as he served for the match at 6-5 and then saving a match point in the tiebreak that ensued.
It was then up to Coco Vandeweghe to keep the final alive for the United States. She broke Kristina Mladenovic in the first game of the match and did not face a break point in the entire first set.
The second set proved to be much closer, with Mladenovic having her opportunities to break for the lead but could not do so. Vandeweghe would score the crucial break in the eleventh game en route to a 6-4, 7-5 victory.
It then came down to the mixed doubles, which for the first time employed the Fast4 format. The French eventually took it out by way of a 4-1, 4-3 (5-0) victory to claim their second Hopman Cup title, complimenting the 2014 title which was won by the pairing of Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Alize Cornet.
And finally, in Auckland, Lauren Davis claimed her first career title by defeating Croatia’s Ana Konjuh in straight sets, while Katerina Siniakova did likewise by beating Alison Riske in Shenzhen.
Meanwhile, Svetlana Kuznetsova began her Sydney title defence by defeating Romania’s Irina-Camelia Begu in straight sets, while Canada’s Eugenie Bouchard put a poor performance in Brisbane behind her by defeating Zhang Shuai in straight sets.
Men’s singles: Richard Gasquet (FRA) defeated Jack Sock (USA) 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (8-6)
Women’s singles: Coco Vandeweghe (USA) defeated Kristina Mladenovic (FRA) 6-4, 7-5
Mixed doubles: Gasquet/Mladenovic (FRA) defeated Sock/Vandeweghe (USA) 4-1, 4-3 (5-0)
Whether it’s aces or races, try out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp for great odds and a great punting experience. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.