Nadal beats Ferrer to win Mexican Open
Pliskova takes WTA title
ACAPULCO, March 3, (Agencies): A dominant Rafa Nadal dismantled fellow Spaniard David Ferrer 6-0 6-2 on Saturday to win his second Mexican Open title and continue his successful comeback from a long injury lay-off.
Nadal, ranked fifth in the world, needed just over an hour to dispatch top seed Ferrer and was delighted with his form.
“For me, I played almost perfectly,” said Nadal following the match. “My knee responded well all week.”
Nadal also confirmed he would play in next week’s Indian Wells hard-court tournament, despite speculation he might skip the event to spare his knee.
“My heart tells me I should continue competing, that I need to move on to the next tournament,” he added.
Nadal had been sidelined for more than seven months due to a partially torn tendon in his knee. He made his return early last month at the Chilean Open, losing in the final to Argentine Horacio Zeballos. A week later he claimed the Brazil Open title.
The former world number one charged out of the blocks and won the first eight games against three-time defending champion Ferrer, who saw his 19-match winning streak at the clay-court event come to an end. “Rafa was just better than me today,” said Ferrer.
World No. 4 Ferrer waited 44 minutes to win his first game of the final, the crowd erupting in applause as he put away a service winner to trail 2-1 in the second set.
In Malaysia, unseeded Czech Karolina Pliskova won her maiden WTAsingles title beating American wildcard entrant Bethanie Mattek-Sands in the Malaysian Open final on Sunday.
The 20-year-old, playing her first singles final, dropped her first set in the tournament but rallied past Mattek-Sands 1-6 7-5 6-3. “I was a little nervous at the start and couldn’t get my serves in. That contributed to the heavy (first set) loss,” Pliskova told reporters.
“I woke up in the second set and began to serve better. This helped turn the tide.
“It was a tough match but I’m delighted to win my first singles title. I still can’t believe it.”
Mattek-Sands got off to a flying start and looked set to win her first singles title in her fourth final but the big-serving Czech, ranked 127, found her way back into the match.
The match was tied 1-1 in the third and final set when a thunderstorm and rain halted play for more than 30 minutes on another hot and humid day in Kuala Lumpur.
Monica Niculescu of Romania defeated Olga Puchkova of Russia 6-2, 4-6, 6-4 in the final of the Brazil Tennis Cup to win her first WTA title on Saturday.
Niculescu had been runner-up twice on tour before finally breaking through at the outdoor hard-court tournament in southern Brazil.
The 75th-ranked Romanian broke Puchkova’s serve to go up 5-4 in the final set then converted on her service game to close out the match in 1 hour, 59 minutes.
“It’s unbelievable,” Niculescu said. “This means a lot, I was so nervous and wanted to win this so much. My game was not brilliant today but it shows that in tennis if you keep fighting you can manage to win.”
She broke Puchkova three times to win the first set but allowed the Russian to rebound in the second with two breaks of her own, including in the final game of the set. The 109th-ranked Puchkova, who ended with six double faults, had upset topseeded Venus Williams in three sets in Friday’s semifinals.
Edouard Roger-Vasselin will meet qualifier Ernests Gulbis in an unlikely final of the Delray Beach International Tennis Championships after they beat the top two seeds in Saturday’s semifinals.
France’s Roger-Vasselin upset top-seeded John Isner 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 while Gulbis edged veteran Tommy Haas 6-3, 4-6, 7-6 (2).
The 15th-ranked Isner could never find his form against Roger-Vasselin, who was playing in his first career ATP World Tour semifinal. Roger-Vasselin was 0-5 in career quarterfinals. His father, Christophe, was a French Open semifinalist in 1983 and ranked as high as 39th.
“It’s a strange feeling because I was not supposed to come here but I got in at the last minute,” Roger-Vasselin said. “I couldn’t imagine I would be in the final at the end of the week.
“I knew on Friday at 5 o’clock that guys pulled out and that I was in. I was still in France.” edging that his team wanted to make a statement in their first home T20 match since lifting the world title last October in Sri Lanka.
Mpofu trapped Johnson Charles legbefore after the opener had taken five consecutive fours off fellow opening bowler Kyle Jarvis and then removed Darren Bravo without scoring to a miscued pull off a short ball.
Dwayne Bravo should have been run out shortly after but Zimbabwe captain Brendan Taylor failed to hold on to a return with the all-rounder short of his ground.
Earlier, Malcolm Waller fell one run short of a maiden T20 half-century and fast bowler Tino Best claimed three wickets to limit Zimbabwe.
Waller and Craig Ervine put on 60 for the fourth wicket, a new Zimbabwe T20 record, after Best had made early inroads, removing the opening pair of Vusi Sibanda and Hamilton Masakadza.
Taylor, who once again called correctly at the toss and chose to take first strike, continued his poor run on the tour with the bat, falling without scoring to a catch at the wicket off Samuel Badree.