By Chris Oddo | Saturday, February 21, 2015
Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic will be back in action at next week’s Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships. In fact, they’re already out there practicing in a sandstorm.
No, seriously:
Hopefully conditions will improve by the start of play. Now, let’s have a quick peek at the draw:
Here’s Novak’s section:
Tough first-rounder for the four-time champion, who’ll face hard-serving Canadian Vasek Pospisil. But Djokovic is 2-0 vs. Pospisil and has won all five sets off of him.
The Serb could face Feliciano Lopez in the quarterfinals (career record 5-0) and Tomas Berdych in the semis (career record 17-2). Should be smooth sailing for the world No. 1 unless he slips.
Now let’s look at Fed’s half:
Federer could/should end up facing Andy Murray in the semis, but before that the Swiss maestro will face a few crafty players with one-handed backhands in the first two rounds.
Federer will open with Mikhail Youzhny in round one.
Question: Does anybody beat Mikhail Youzhny 16 times in a row? That is what Federer will attempt to do in the first round.
In the second round, Federer will face Guillermo Garcia Lopez, who has been a very solid player in the last year. Federer has taken all seven sets from the Spaniard, but they have not played since 2009.
Federer could meet either Roberto Bautista Agut, Richard Gasquet or Andreas Seppi (sorry Dominic Thiem, we don’t see you reaching the quarters) in the quarterfinals. Both Gasquet (2-13 lifetime) and Seppi (1-10 lifetime with a win in their last meeting in Australia) own wins against Federer.
Murray, meanwhile, could be challenged by Gilles Muller in the first round.
If Murray and Federer meet in the semis, it would give the Scot a chance to even his lifetime record against Federer. After dropping all three matches to Federer in 2014, he now owns an 11-12 lifetime record against the 17-time Grand Slam champion.