1st Week

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in Doha and Andy Murray in Brisbane won their titles, respectively 8th and 22nd in similar style. Both players struggled in the first two rounds with much more inferior opponents, especially Murray, who began the tournament losing the first four games, he was two points away from defeat in his second round match with Gilles Muller. It’s Murray’s first tournament with a former No. 1 Ivan Lendl as a coach, the 51-year-old Czech came to Australia to witness the last two matches of his new pupil. “I served pretty well again,” said Murray after the final. “It got close in the second set and I stayed focused. He was just going for his shots [and] hit quite a few winners but I didn’t let it get to me. It’s good because I could easily have lost second round against Muller but I managed to fight my way through and played three very good matches.”
Milos Raonic [31] showed an extraordinary service performance in Chennai winning the tournament (his second) without dropping a service game. In the 3-hour 13-minute final, the young Canadian fired 35 aces, only 1 double fault delivering 1st serve with a stunning 73% efficiency. Janko Tipsarevic had a double mini-championship point at 4:3 in the 2nd set – Raonic responded with an ace and smash. Two games later, Raonic being two points away from losing the final, played a rally with risky forehands in both directions. Will he reach the Top 10 this year? I guess it’s too early to predict, he hasn’t still played against Djokovic, Murray, Tsonga and Federer. His mentality looks impressive by now, and I’m very curious how he will deal with tight situations against the guys mentioned above.

Finals

Doha (250)
S: (3)Jo-Wilfried Tsonga d. (4)Gael Monfils 7-5, 6-3
D: F.Polasek/L.Rosol d. C.Kas/P.Kohlschreiber 6-3, 6-4

Brisbane (250)
S: (1)Andy Murray d. (3)Alexandr Dolgopolov 6-1, 6-3
D: (1)M.Mirnyi/D.Nestor d. (2)J.Melzer/P.Petzschner 6-1, 6-2

Chennai (250)
S: (4)Milos Raonic d. (1)Janko Tipsarevic 6-7(4), 7-6(4), 7-6(4)
D: (3)L.Paes/J.Tipsarevic d. (4)J.Erlich/A.Ram 6-4, 6-4

Hopman Cup
Czech Republik d. France 2-0 (Petra Kvitova, Tomas Berdych)

Choker of the week:

Blaz Kavcic led 6-4, 5:1 against Steve Darcis in Chennai, but lost 6-4, 5-7, 3-6. It’s Kavcic’s second defeat within a year from a set and double break up. Similar defeat he suffered against Fabio Fognini in Casablanca last year in April.

# All tie-break three set finals (the best of 3):

Los Angeles 1985: P.Annacone d. S.Edberg 7-6(5), 6-7(8), 7-6(4) …… 2:54
Halle 1997: Y.Kafelnikov d. P.Korda 7-6(2), 6-7(5), 7-6(7) …… 2:20
Chennai 2012: M.Raonic d. J.Tipsarevic 6-7(4), 7-6(4), 7-6(4) …… 3:13

# Deciding third set tie-breaks: Raonic 6-0 (!); Tipsarevic 3-10