The crowds are increasing at the Dubai tennis stadium as the men's tennis gets underway. Men's day 1 was fun as I got to see Marcos Baghdatis (Cyprus) beat Gilles Simon (France), Max Mirnyi (Belorus) and Mahesh Bhupathi (India) beat a local Arab team, Novak Djokovic (Serbia) beat Guillermo Garcia-Lopez from Spain, and Scotsman Andy Murray beat a tough qualifier from Russia, Igor Kunitsyn. Except for the doubles match, these were all great battles. It does not look easy to win a match here!
What surprises me most about these early matches is that they seem so close. Even with a score of 6-3 or 6-2 the difference between winning and losing is small, just a couple of points either way. I was surprised that Djokovic and Murray had so much trouble with their much lower ranked opponents. Perhaps it was just because it was their opening match?
Andy Murray looked much more put together than before in his new Adidas outfit, whilc Novak Djokovic got my vote for best dressed, mostly due to his shoes, also Adidas, which looked like they had spats. What's next--a tuxedo tennis outfit?
I am very sorry to hear that Federer had to withdraw at the last minute due to a lung infection. Since he now lives and trains in Dubai, he is expected to make an appearance at some point. So I may be rubbing shoulders with him soon, as I did yesterday walking right past by Feliciano Lopez and Max Mirnyi as they came off the court. The kids who attended Kids' Day were in heaven with the incredible autograph opportunities. The rest of us were glad to see them go at the end of the afternoon, as they were hogging the good seats and spilling their drinks and getting up and down at odd times.
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