Roger Federer completed an almost perfect week by winning back
the Dubai Open title he lost to Rafael Nadal last year.
The triple Grand Slam titleholder from Switzerland started the
week by equalling Jimmy Connors's 30-year-old record of 160
consecutive weeks as No 1 and ended it with a 6-4, 6-3 win over
Mikhail Youzhny, the unseeded Russian, in the final.
"I had a bit of a rough start here, and struggled in the early
rounds. And Mikhail made a good start and I had to react," said
Federer, referring to an early 0-2 deficit.
"But I am full of confidence and am on a great run. I did react
and then my game came together nicely."
It extended Federer's career-best run of consecutive wins to 41,
equaling the achievement of Bjorn Borg, who was present watching
the amazing Swiss player.
Federer also remains on course to equal Guillermo Vilas's
all-time record of 46 successive victories at the next tournament,
in Indian Wells, starting next week.
"You always try to make the best of it," Federer commented. "Of
course I usually play well in Indian Wells, but I will have to be
at my best (to equal the record)."
Federer on Saturday also launched into strong criticism of what
he called "the bad situation" over the incorrect reinstatement of a
player at the ATP tournament in Las Vegas, and alleged that the ATP
chief executive Etienne de Villiers had "burnt his fingers."
The world No 1 looked annoyed as he talked about the controversy
which developed two days ago after James Blake was wrongly given a
place in the quarterfinals and de Villiers apologized for
mistakenly intervening.
Federer also predicted that the ATP's experimental round-robin
system which led to the confusion and to the reinstatement of
Evgeny Korolev, the Russian player, would be abandoned by the end
of this year.
"Everyone knows that I was against it in the first place," he
said. "It's very disappointing that things like this have to happen
before you realize that actually this system was not going to
work.
"And I've always said you have to keep tennis the way it is and
not try to change and mix it up and try too many things at the same
time. And now he's burned his hand on this that's for sure.
"I doubt that it is going to happen next year - the round-robin
system. It's going to be interesting to see the reaction now,
because they are definitely under pressure now and especially the
ones involved. I think it's a very bad situation that happened, so
we'll see what happens."
(China Daily via AFP March 5, 2007)