ATP Dubai, Delray Beach, and Acapulco – Monday 27th February until Sunday 4th March 2012
In remarkably symmetrical fashion to last week’s picks, I had a losing semi-finalist and a winning Spaniard to take my winning selections to two in as many weeks, following David Ferrer’s win in Buenos Aires this past week. In all truth he was never seriously troubled throughout the week and was probably fairly confident entering the final against Nicolas Almagro, given his 8-0 head-to-head record against his compatriot.
ATP DUBAI
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This week sees the return to the tour of Australian Open champion and world number one Novak Djokovic, where he will be competing in the main tournament on tour in Dubai. Any appearance by the world’s best player needs to be seriously respected and I cannot see how anyone else can be backed, with the Serbian in such good form. He has begun 2012 in very much the same fashion as 2011 and I just can’t look past Djokovic winning the trophy here. Both Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray more than gave Djokovic a match down under in January and with only the latter of those two competing this week, Djokovic must see this as a potential tournament-winning week, as well as the bumper payday that is likely to follow. Murray may fancy his chances in a best of three-set duel but it’d be a rather large surprise if Djokovic wasn’t able to see off the opposition this week.
Selection – Novak Djokovic
ACAPULCO
In the second ATP 500 tournament of the week, Acapulco hosts a clay court tournament that has unsurprisingly been dominated by Spain and South America. Not since Jiri Novak (remember him?) in 1998 has there been a champion here outside of the aforementioned locations and it’d be somewhat of a shock if this trend was bucked this year. Gilles Simon, Florian Mayer, and Stanislas Wawrinka are the only seeds outside of either Spain or South America and with none of them having made waves on the red stuff in recent times, I’d be inclined to look at David Ferrer to secure back-to-back tournament wins. He heads to Acapulco in decent enough form, full of confidence, and with exertions kept to a minimum in Buenos Aires, I expect him to make it three wins on the spin in Mexico.
Selection – David Ferrer
DELRAY BEACH
The third tournament of the week is in North America where Delray Beach in Florida hosts a competitive-looking enough event. There doesn’t appear to be many stand out participants, with a host top 40 players on show. John Isner is the sole representative from the world’s top 20 players and is arguably the home contingent’s best chance of a champion this week. I think the opposite half of the draw is where I’ll focus my attentions because the seeded players look vulnerable to me, with the exception of Marin Cilic. If he can negotiate a tricky 1st round match against Jarkko Nieminen, the three other seeds in the lower part of the draw (Alex Bogomolov, Viktor Troicki, and Philipp Kohlschreiber) shouldn’t trouble Cilic. He’s a match for most players on tour and if the courts are as quick as I’m predicting they might be, Cilic has to have a great chance of reaching the final at least.
Selection – Marin Cilic
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