Indian Wells and Miami 2014 recap
Indian Wells
Flavia Pennetta def Agnieszka Radwanska 6-2 6-1
Novak Djokovic def Roger Federer 3-6 6-3 7-6
Su-Wei Hsieh/Shuai Peng def Cara Black/Sania Mirza 7-6 6-2
Bob and Mike Bryan def Alexander Peya/Bruno Soares 6-4 6-3
Flavia Pennetta
The 32 yr old Italian defeated the top two seeds, Li Na and Agniezska Radwanska to capture the biggest title of her career. With a semifinal at the US Open, a quarterfinal at the Australian Open, her game has been really solid these last few months. Read her interview here.
Agnieszka Radwanska
She appeared ready to win a title that counts for a big step once again, but as often Agnieszka Radwanska wasn’t able to come through in a big-stage match. Injured (? – but that injury didn’t prevent her from playing in Miami and reaching the quarterfinals at the Sony Open), the 25 yr old Pole was devastated by her loss.
Simona Halep
The Romanian, who won the first six titles of her career last year, reached her first Premier Mandatory semifinal at Indian Wells and is now the new world number 5.
Maria Sharapova
The defending champion was ousted by world number 79 Camila Giorgi in the third round. With this loss she has dropped to number 7, her lowest ranking since the summer of 2011.
Novak Djokovic
First title of the season for the world number 2, a much needed title after his disppointing quarterfinal loss at the Australian Open.
Roger Federer
A resurgent Federer reached the final without dropping a set, but a couple of unforced errors in the third set tiebreaker cost him the final and the title.
Alexandr Dolgopolov
He had never won a set against Nadal before, but Dolgopolov beat him in the third round and then defeated Fabio Fognini and Milos Raonic to make his first ATP Masters 1000 semifinal.
Miami Sony Open
Serena Williams def Li Na 7-5 6-1
Novak Djokovic def Rafael Nadal 6-3 6-3
Martina Hingis/Sabine Lisicki def Ekaterina Makarova/Elena Vesnina 4-6 6-4 10-5
Bob and Mike Bryan def Juan Sebastian Cabal/Robert Farah 7-6 6-4
Serena Williams
She started the tournament slowly with a three sets win over Caroline Garcia and then rolled to the title with straight sets victory over Coco Vandeweghe, Angelique Kerber, Maria Sharapova and Li Na. After a victory in Brisbane and losses in Melbourne and Dubai, she won her second title of the year, her 7th in Miami.
Li Na
First Premier Mandatory final for Li Na who had set point in the first but she lost 11 of the last 12 games.
Dominika Cibulkova
She followed her final in Melbourne with a win in Acapulco, a quarterfinal at Indian Wells, and after her run through the Miami semifinals, the Slovakian makes her entry to the top 10.
Maria Sharapova
She has now lost her last 15 matches against Serena Williams, in fact Serena hasn’t lost to Sharapova since 2004 in Los Angeles! The Russian hasn’t progressed in any area of her game and she could drop out of the top 10 soon.
Martina Hingis
The former world number one teamed up with Sabine Lisicki to win her 38th doubles title, her first in seven years.
Novak Djokovic
Nadal and Djokovic played each other for the 40th times. Djokovic dominated from the start and won comfortably 6-3 6-3. It is his fourth Miami title, his 18th Masters 1000 title overall. Only Andre Agassi has won the Key Biscayne tournament more (6).
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Rafael Nadal
Nadal is now 0-4 in finals at Key Biscayne, one of just three ATP Masters 1000 events he has yet to win.
Kei Nishikori
Nishikori saved 4 match points to beat David Ferrer in three sets and three hours of play, but he had plenty left in the tank to upset Roger Federer in the quarterfinals. Unfortunately he hurt himself and had to withdraw from the semifinals.
Andy Murray
The Scot announced his split with Ivan Lendl after two years of collaboration, 2 Grand Slam titles and an Olympic Gold medal. The announcement took nearly everyone in the game by surprise but the split was amicable. Check out my video of Lendl being interviewed at the World Tennis Day in London a month ago in which he talks about that Scottish boy.
Lleyton Hewitt
With his win over Robin Haase in the first round, Lleyton Hewitt has become the 21st male player to record 600 match wins. Only Roger Federer (942) and Rafael Nadal (675) have won more matches among active players.