For over a decade the Mubadala World Tennis Championships has been a regular fixture in the tennis off-season.
Starting in 2009, the annual event has featured some of the biggest names in men’s tennis with previous winners including Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray. Since 2017, organizers have also held an exhibition women’s match with this year’s clash seeing Ons Jabeur ousting 2021 US Open champion Emma Raducanu in three sets.
As for the men’s tournament, four out of the six participants this season are currently ranked in the world’s top 10. Ahead of the final day of action, Ubitennis quizzed some of those players in Abu Dhabi about a variety of topics ranging from their experience of the tournament to their ultimate goal in the sport.
Borna Coric had fun but not as much as his team
Coric came in as a late replacement for Frances Tiafoe who was forced to pull out due to an unspecified injury. Playing in the tournament for the first time, he suffered back-to-back defeats to Andrey Rublev in the quarter-finals and then Cameron Norrie in the fifth place play-off.
Reflecting on his experience, the Croat has only good things to say about the city. Even though he was unable to explore it as his team did.
“I enjoyed my time here. It is a very nice city. I haven’t done much to be honest because I arrived in the late afternoon and practised on my first day. Then I had a couple of things to do with the tennis side so I couldn’t really do much. My team went to the Ferrari World and the mosque so they had a much better time than me.”
Ruud slowly adjusting
Does Casper Ruud ever rest? After playing at the ATP Finals in Turin, he traveled across South America to play in a series of exhibition matches against 22-time Grand Slam winner Rafael Nadal. Ruud, who played 73 ATP Tour matches in 2022, unsurprisingly had issues adjusting to the conditions in the Middle East after playing across Europe and South America.
“The court is a little bit different and it took some time for me to get used to it because I have been playing mainly indoors in recent weeks. Especially in South America where I was playing exhibition matches against Rafa (Nadal) indoors. Took me a bit longer to get used to the warmer weather but I’m feeling a bit better day by day.”
On Sunday, Ruud defeated world No.1 Alcaraz 6-1, 6-4, to win the third-place play-off.
Norrie aiming high
After reaching his first Grand Slam semi-final in July, Cameron Norrie is hungry for even more. This year he has won titles in Delray Beach and Lyon, as well as finishing runner-up at two other events. However, Norrie is far from satisfied with his performance.
“I think last year wasn’t a surprise because I felt good and I had a really good year. This year has been good but I do wish I could have done a bit better. But I think that is just how my expectations change. I finished 10th or 11th last year. So it is tough to finish around the same this year with Wimbledon not awarding points. Maybe I could have been a bit better this year. Overall, it was a good year with a lot of good wins. My expectations (for 2023) go up and up so I am going to have to fulfill those.”
This week the Brit lost to Stefanos Tsitsipas before beating Coric at the exhibition event.
Alcaraz vividly remembers watching his mentor plays
Juan Carlos Ferrero has been the driving force behind Carlos Alcaraz’s meteoric rise in the sport which has seen the youngster end 2022 as world No.1 despite being only 19. Unsurprisingly he has been named Coach of the Year by the ATP.
There is a strong bond between the two but does Alcaraz remember much of Ferrero as a competitive player?
“I don’t remember too much about the first time I watched Juan Carlos Ferrero play in real life. I watched a lot of videos of him playing at his best level at his best tournaments. However, I don’t remember much about watching him in real life or on TV.”
In all fairness to Alcaraz, he was just nine when Ferrero retired from professional tennis in 2012.
Ruud: Give me a Grand Slam, not the No.1 spot
Ruud has been agonizingly close to the two biggest milestones in tennis – becoming world No.1 and winning a Grand Slam. The two-time major finalist is currently ranked No.3 in the world and is 1000 points behind leader Alcaraz. But if he could choose, which one would he pick?
“It has to be to win a Grand Slam for me. The Grand Slam trophy is something you can keep forever. Whilst the No.1 position is something you can have temporarily but you can not have it forever. Ok, you can have the career-high No.1 ranking forever but to me, the biggest goal for me and many other players is to try to win a Grand Slam.”
The Mubadala World Tennis Championships concluded on Sunday with Stefanos Tsitsipas defeating Rublev 6-2, 4-6, 6-2, in the final.
Note: all questions asked by Ubitennis were during the players’ press conferences by Andras Ruszanov who is the founder of www.db4tennis.com.
