Djokovic beats Murray for 3rd straight Aust. Open title

Sun, 27 Jan 2013 14:44:00 +0000

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Novak Djokovic returned to his dominant best to win his third consecutive Australian Open title, denying Andy Murray a second major championship with a 6-7 (2), 7-6 (3), 6-3, 6-2 victory Sunday night at Rod Laver Arena.

The top-ranked Djokovic is the first man in the Open era to win three straight Australian titles.

Born a week apart in May 1987 and friends since their junior playing days, the two played like they knew each other's game well in a rematch of last year's U.S. Open final won by Murray. There were no service breaks until the eighth game of the third set, when Djokovic finally broke through and then held at love to lead by two sets to one.

Djokovic also secured the second break of the match to take a 2-1 lead in the fourth set then went ahead by two service breaks and took a 4-1 lead when Murray double-faulted on break point.

Are professional tennis players doping, too?

Tue, 13 Nov 2012 21:00:00 +0000

With Novak Djokovic’s win over Roger Federer yesterday at the ATP World Tour Finals in London, the curtain has come down on the 2012 tennis season. Though on paper a routine-looking straight-set affair (7-6, 7-5), it was, as it so often is these days in the men’s game, thrillingly close, the exchanges regularly hitting that spectatorial sweet spot of long rallies and relentlessly precise shotmaking. The match was the culmination of a sort of mini–Grand Slam event in which only the top eight players compete, duking it out without the early-round drudgery of a true Slam. A purist’s paradise, then, a purged meritocracy of irresistible forces meeting immovable objects? Perhaps. But in the wake of the Lance Armstrong doping scandal, no sport that requires as much training, endurance and sheer athletic grit as does 21st-century professional tennis can insulate itself from the chill winds of suspicion and skepticism. So that now, when confronted with the phenomena of Rafael Nadal’s unbefitting (at least for a tennis player) biceps, Federer’s serenely sweatless exertions, and 54-stroke rallies (cf. Andy Murray vs. Djokovic at this year’s U.S. Open final), an unease creeps into our wonder and admiration. How, exactly, are these guys doing this?

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Djokovic beats Murray for 3rd straight Aust. Open title

Are professional tennis players doping, too?