Fourth seed Goffin and Kohlschreiber, seeded seventh, make exit in the second round, losing to the Spaniards

The weather in Doha dropped a bit yesterday but the action at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open raised itself quite a few notches, to provide great entertainment for the spectators that had turned up to watch the stars in action.
Day 5 started with a couple of upsets, with two seeded players getting knocked out but then order was restored later when the rest of the big names progressed to the quarter-finals.
Belgium’s David Goffin has risen up to 11th in the world rankings, an indicator of how well he has done in the past year. But yesterday, his aggressive gameplay didn’t work against Spain’s Fernando Verdasco, who claimed a straight sets victory – 6-1, 7-6 (6). Goffin, the fourth seed here, tried hard to fight back in the second set but fell short.
In the top half of the draw, another Spaniard upset the odds. Nicolas Almagro edged out seventh seed Philipp Kohlschreiber 7-6(5), 7-6(6) in a closely matched battle. The German could have won the match but pulled up short in the key points. The two big stars, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray, were given a good workout by their opponents but eventually claimed straight sets victories. Djokovic defeated Horacio Zeballos 6-3, 6-4. The first set was a relatively easy affair for the Serb. But in the second set, Zeballos’ single-handed backhanded started singing. And that caused a lot for problems for the world no. 2. Add the fact that the Argentine is left-handed and Djokovic might have remembered a certain somebody.
Zeballos was swinging with flourish and was connecting and connecting well. The vociferous crowd that had turned up was treated to some good quality tennis and the Argentine won quite a few hearts with his brave performance. Djokovic closed out the match with an ace ‘down the t’ and then proceeded to celebrate with a fist pump. “It was a different match against a different kind of opponent. He was left-handed. I hadn’t played against him and had not played against (Jan-Lennard) Struff either. So it’s never easy to start against opponents that you never played before,” said Djokovic after the match.
The aggressive approach of his opponent did surprise the defending champion. “You’re trying to start with the right intensity, and the start of the match today was definitely better than the first round. I was quite pleasantly surprised with his aggressive play, especially his first shot from the back of the court after his serve. He was playing some aggressive shots, coming to the net often and not being afraid to take his chances.”
But all in all, Djokovic said that he was happy with his game. “It was a good quality match. I thought I played well on my service games. I didn’t face the break point, so that’s a positive. It’s a better performance from my side than in the first match. Hopefully I can continue this upward trend,” he said.
The defending champion will be glad that he got a fight like that because he will be facing the veteran Radek Stepanek in his quarter-final bout. Stepanek defeated Arthurd de Greef in straight sets 6-3, 6-2.
“I know Radek very well. He’s one of the best friends on the tour that I have. He keeps on surprising everybody with his level of consistency in his game,” said Djokovic of his next opponent.
“I think more than anything, his dedication to the sport and willingness to discover new ways to get his body in the perfect shape is great. I think he’s very smart when it comes down to that,” he added.
Meanwhile, Murray was dragged into longer battle than he would have liked. The world no. 1 took two hours and 23 minutes to get past Gerald Melzer. The Brit was able to wrap it up in two sets but needed to dig deep to come up with a 7-6(6), 7-5 win.  Murray had multiple chances to snatch an early finish to the match but couldn’t shut out Melzer. In the first set tie-break, Murray was leading 6-2. But Melzer was able to win the next four points to draw level. The Austrian fought well but Murray’s game surfaced when he needed it the most.
The second set was an erratic one – an excellent one for the spectators. Murray was serving for the set (and match) at 5-4 but couldn’t keep Melzer at bay and the set was back on level terms. It necessitated the ‘screaming-at-self’ routine from Murray. But then he was able to break back and this time, closed out the set and the win.
“I have never played him before. But he played much better than his ranking of 68 and I told him that if he continued to play like this, he will rise up quickly,’ said Murray after his match. The Brit will take on Almagro in his quarter-final.

Second round results
Prefix denotes seeding

1-Andy Murray (Britain) bt Gerald Melzer (Austria) 7-6(6) 7-5; 6-Ivo Karlovic (Croatia) bt Karen Khachanov (Russia) 7-6(3) 7-6(3); 3-Tomas Berdych (Czech Republic) bt Jiri Vesely (Czech Republic) 7-6(5) 1-6 6-1; 2-Novak Djokovic (Serbia) bt Horacio Zeballos (Argentina) 6-3 6-4; Nicolas Almagro (Spain) bt 7-Philipp Kohlschreiber (Germany) 7-6(5) 7-6(6); Fernando Verdasco (Spain) bt 4-David Goffin (Belgium) 6-1 7-6(6); Radek Stepanek (Czech Republic) bt Arthur De Greef (Belgium) 6-3 6-2

Selfie surprise for Djokovic
The matches at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open yesterday were quite an exciting affair for the spectators. But the one thing that had the fans, the most excited was a selfie taken on the court. What’s so exciting you ask? The person taking the selfie was Horacio Zeballos and he took one of him with Novak Djokovic. After losing his second round match to Djokovic. It was a move that surprised everybody, including the defending champion.
“It was quite nice. It was a nice surprise. I never experienced that in, let’s say, official tournaments,” said Djokovic.
“I don’t know what the motivation was. I don’t know if he was a fan or not, but it was just a funny idea to do that. I thought it was just very original, creative, and in a very friendly manner,” he added.
In the cut-throat competitive world of tennis, Djokovic said that Zeballos’ selfie was a nice example of how, once the match is done, the players return to being ‘human beings’. “I think at the end of the day, the two players on court are trying to outplay each other and win the game. Once that’s finished, once you shake hands, you’re normal people. Of course you want to win. But once it’s done, it’s done. The past is behind you,” said Djokovic.
“I think today’s selfie is a nice example about how two players can leave whatever behind is behind. It was just minute or two after we shook hands. He was already over the match that he lost and he moved onto doing something different. I applaud him for that. I think it was a really nice gesture,” said the defending champion.
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