Final Kichenok, Manafov award, Chinese history and sexy Kostyuk

The first tennis week ended in February. The girls competed for the trophy at the WTA 500 in Abu Dhabi and the WTA 250 in Linz this December. Men simultaneously participated in three tournaments from the ATP 250 series: competitions in Cordoba, Dallas and Montpellier.

WTA 500 Abu Dhabi

The Abu Dhabi tournament was the first major tournament for girls since the Australian Open. Open hard happened. Expectations were high as well as expectations from Ukrainian tennis players. Dayana Yastremska and Katarina Zawatskaya started these competitions by qualifying. Dayana successfully passed the selection screen by defeating Laura Siegemund and Cathy Liu. But Zawatskaya did not get to the bottom of the tournament – she lost in the final of the qualifier to US Open 2021 finalist Leila Fernandez.

Getty Images/Global Images Ukraine. Katharina Zawatskaya

After Dayana passed the election, the two Ukrainians became the basis of the competition in the UAE. In addition to Yastremska, Marta Kostyuk, who received WC from the organizers, started from the 1/16 finals. The first round of the main draw ended differently for the girls: Dayana lost to Gilles Teichmann, and Kostyuk defeated Sorana Kyrstu in three sets. Then Martha met up with the future winner of the tournament, Belinda Bencic. The Ukrainian lost in two sets to Switzerland and lost the second set 5:3.

Getty Images/Global Images Ukraine. Dayana Yastremskaya

In a couple, Ukraine was represented by Lyudmila Kichenok, who decided to try herself with a new partner. Unfortunately the experiment failed. Lyudmila, along with Anna Danilina, was eliminated in the first round of the competition by Louise Stefani and Zhang Shuai.

The winner of the competition in Abu Dhabi, as we mentioned above, was Belinda Bencic, who defeated Russian Lyudmila Samsonova in three sets in the final of the tournament. Interestingly, Belinda saved three match points in game two. For Bencic, this trophy was the eighth of his career and the second of the season. She already took the title in Adelaide in 2023.

Getty Images/Global Images Ukraine. Belinda Bencic

WTA 250 Linz

There was a lot of hope for Angelina Kalinina. Ukraine’s first racket got off to a great start, beating Alisha Parks, who had a 15-game winning streak on indoor chords. These competitions were held indoors. However, Kalinina did not reach the quarterfinals of the tournament. In the 1/8 final, she unexpectedly lost in two sets to Anna-Lena Friedsam and finished their performance in Linz.

Getty Images/Global Images Ukraine. Angelina Kalinina

It is worth noting that another Ukrainian, Kateryna Beindl, started from this tournament qualifier. However, he failed in the first selection round and lost to Noma Akuga Noha in a devastating and sensational fashion.

The winner of the competition was Anastasia Potapova, who defeated Petra Martic in the final.

In a pair, Ukraine was represented by Nadezhda Kichenok, who performed in a duet with the criminal Kalinina – Fridzam. The Ukrainian-German duo also performed quite well this week. Kichenok and Fridzam reached the final of the competition, scoring one match point and 8:6 in their favor in the final tie-break, but failing to squeeze Natela Dzalamidze and Victoria Kuzmova. All in all – a disappointing defeat, but a good experience playing in the finals. After the match, Nadezhda hugged the net, garnered applause and made all tennis fans smile.

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ATP 250 Cordoba / ATP 250 Dallas / ATP 250 Montpellier

Last week, three tournaments were held simultaneously for men: two indoor hard and one unpaved. First seeded Diego Schwartzman and Francisco Cerundolo in Cordoba were considered the favourites. One, none of them made it to the final, not even to the semi-finals. The cup was eventually played by Sebastian Baez and Federico Coria. The winner was Baez, who had 17 losses in the matches before the start of the competitions in Cordoba. For Sebastian, this trophy was his career second at ATP level and first in the 2023 season.

Twitter. sebastian baez

The tournament in Dallas went down in history in at least two ways. First, the famous John Isner won his 500th tiebreak, becoming the first tennis player in history to do so. Second, it’s a historic award for China. Chinese tennis player Wu Yibin unexpectedly received his first career trophy, thus becoming the first Chinese to win the ATP title. In the final of the tournament, he defeated John Isner, who got 4 championship points in the final.

Twitter. Vu Yibin

The rivalry in Montpellier was remembered by the psychos of Alexander Bublik, the departure of the first seed Holger Rune from Maxim Cressy and the confident play of Yannick Sinner. The trophy winner in this tournament was Yannick, who beat Cressy in straight sets in the final. Throughout the tournament, Sinner never lost a set and was very cool in his serve. Sinner currently has 7 trophies and 4 indoor courts in his career.

Getty Images/Global Images Ukraine. Yannick Sinner and Maxime Cressy

Cup Manafov

Ukrainian tennis player Vladislav Manafov took the doubles cup at the Challenger in Vilnius. For the Ukrainian, this is the fifth such title in his career.

Manafov played with the Belarusian Ivan Lutarevich. According to available information, Lutarevich completely condemns the actions of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus, and Vladislav actively assists the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Instagram. Vladislav Manafov and Ivan Lutarevich

Failure of Cool and Sachko

Until now, the first numbers of Ukrainian tennis do not find their game. Alexei Krutykh played two Challengers in Tenerife after his good performance at the Australian Open 2023. If he made it to the quarterfinals in the first competitions, he flew in the first round from Stefano Travaglia last week. True, it is worth noting that Travaglia finally reached the final of this contender.

Vitaly Sachko could not enter the opponent’s base in Vilnius. He beat a local tennis player without rating in the first qualifying round and lost to Kirkin from Turkey in the qualifying final.

Doubles final at ITF tournaments

Vladimir Uzhilovsky and Alexander Ovcharenko managed to reach the final, albeit in doubles, in their tournament last week. Unfortunately, none of them managed to win the trophy.

Vladimir played with Simon Kelan in the title match of the ITF M15 series tournament in Sharm el-Sheikh, where he lost to the tandem of Jiri Barnat and Filip Duda of the Czech Republic.

Along with Neil Oberleitner, Ovcharenko reached the doubles final in the 25,000th at Monastir. However, the Ukrainian and the Austrian could not win the cup, losing to the duet of the Republic of Belarus Harutyunyan and Ostapenkov. Meanwhile, Ostapenkov is best known for beating Diego Schwartzman in the Davis Cup in 2021.

Video of the week or what made Marta Kostyuk happy?

Kostyuk, unfortunately, is not yet surprising with his game. He consistently takes losses against top 10 tennis players. But still, Kostyuk was remembered by at least two videos last week.

At first, Marta danced after an event stemming from the organizers in Abu Dhabi. She beat the ukrainian Kyrstu and was ready to talk to the reporters but suddenly the music started playing she. Kostyuk did not lose his head, but showed a short and sweet dance.

Then, Marta not only delighted subscribers by posting a video of her vacation to the sea in a swimsuit, but also confirmed that she will not be playing at the competitions in Doha next week.