Dubai Open: Roger Federer eliminated in shock upset by World No 116 Evgeny Donskoy

Russian qualifier Evgeny Donskoy upset Roger Federer 3-6, 7-6, 7-6 in their second round match on Wednesday evening.

It was the first meeting between the two players, and while Federer took the first set in 29 minutes, he found it difficult to gain traction on the Russian’s game, over the course of the next two sets, and went on to commit a slew of unforced errors.

There was a brief stoppage of play during the eighth game of the second set, when one side of the court was thrown into sudden darkness because of unexpected stopping of working of the overhead floodlights. While the players and tournament officials mulled whether or not to halt play for the day, the gathered crowd in that section of the stadium tried to lighten the situation by switching on the torch-lights on their cell phones and directing it onto the court.

Following the resumption of the match, Donskoy had a set point on Federer’s serve in the 10th game, but Federer saved it with his eighth ace. In the ensuing tie-break, the seven-time former champion had three match points, but couldn’t convert any and eventually lost the set, after Donskoy converted his second set point at 8-7 in the tie-break.

The third set resembled a comedy of errors as Federer failed to serve out the match in the ninth game after having broken Donskoy in the sixth game. Later, a break of Federer’s serve in the 11th game gave the 116th ranked player the chance to serve for the match, which he too failed to successfully convert, giving the break back to the Swiss.

In the third set tie-break, Federer led 5-1, but he couldn’t hold on to his lead. Finally at 6-5 in the tie-break, Donskoy secured his first-ever win over a top-10 player and a place in the quarter-finals, where he will now face France Lucas Pouille.

Pouille had earlier defeated Romanian qualifier Marius Copil in straight sets, 6-1, 6-4.

Andy Murray’s easy way through

Andy Murray closed out a comfortable straight sets win over Spain’s Guillermo Garcia-Lopez in the second round of the Dubai Open, on Wednesday evening. The World No 1 dropped just two games to win 6-2, 6-0 in the 72-minute long match to move into the quarter-finals.

The World No 97 held his own in the initial couple of games of the first set, before Murray capitalised on his wayward shot-making to get the first break of serve in the match. A second break on the Spaniard’s serve in the eighth game helped the top-seed clinch the opening set.

The second set was completely dominated by Murray, even as Garcia-Lopez struggled to get the simplest of shots right. Eventually, Murray closed out on the win on his second match point on Garcia-Lopez’s serve in the sixth game of the second set.

Murray had 20 winners to his opponent’s 12 and had 12 unforced errors to Garcia-Lopez’s 15. He also won 86% points off his first serves as compared to the Spaniard’s 49%.

In the quarter-finals, the Briton will take on Germany’s Philipp Kohlschreiber, who defeated Russian Danil Medvedev 6-4, 6-4 in their second round match, earlier on the same day.