The last tennis week ended in February. The men played three different tournaments on different surfaces: ATP 250 Doha (hard), ATP 250 Marseille (hard hall) and ATP 500 Rio de Janeiro (clay). The women competed at the WTA 1000 grand tournament in Dubai and the WTA 250 Merida, which was held for the first time on these courts in Mexico.

WTA 1000 Dubai

This tournament was truly a turning point for Ukrainian tennis. At the base, 4 Ukrainians played simultaneously. But first things first. Dayana Yastremska and Katarina Zawatskaya started qualifying. Dayana defeated Anna Danilina in the first selection round and confidently defeated Lauren Davis in the qualifying final. Zavatskaya also unexpectedly passed Madison Brengle at first, and then defeated Romanian Stefania Bozhika, who won a sensational victory against veteran Danka Kvinic in the first selection round.

As a result, 4 representatives of Ukraine simultaneously took part in the heart of a major tournament held in the city of Dubai: our country’s first racket Angelina Kalinina, her second racket Marta Kostyuk and two qualifying players: Katarina Zavatskaya and Dayana Yastremskaya. Zavatskaya started with a match with Ukraine’s Alena Ostapenko against Latvia. Unfortunately, Katarina was unable to beat the winner of Roland Garros 2017 in two sets. In the 1/32 final, Yastremskaya defeated Alize Cornet, after which she met with Angelina Kalinina. The Ukrainian derby lasted three sets and ended with the return of Angelina.

Getty Images/Global Images Ukraine. Alena Ostapenko and Dayana Yastremskaya

But let’s turn to Angelina separately. She played with Russian Veronika Kudermetova in the first round of the main draw. Obviously, Kalinina unexpectedly beat Kudermetova, but it is absolutely pleasant for all Ukrainians. As a matter of fact, Kalinina interrupted Kudermetova’s 9-game winning streak against the Ukrainians as well as representing a terrorist country. After the fight, Angelina did not shake hands with the Russian woman and, with her head held high, reached the 1/16 finals of the tournament, where she defeated Yastremskaya. But it was not possible to reach the quarterfinals – in the 1/8 finals, Kalinina lost in the fight against Karolina Pliskova.

Another Ukrainian tennis player representing our country in the competitions in Dubai was Marta Kostyuk. He faced İpek Öz in the first round. Martha’s game was not very pleasant at the beginning because she beat the Turkish woman in only three sets and created absolutely unnecessary difficulties for herself. Despite this, it was won. But in the 1/16 finals, Belinda Bencic, the representative of the top 10, who had won against Martha in Abu Dhabi on 8 February, was waiting for her. Then the match turned out to be not very interesting, although it is difficult to describe it as a “one-goal game” (Bencic closed Marta in two sets). Now Martha had every chance to beat Belinda. Kostyuk took the first set from Bencic with a tie-break, but failed to repeat the same in the second set and physically sank and lost in the third set. This defeat was 13th for Kostyuk against tennis players in the top 10.

Getty Images/Global Images Ukraine. Martha Kostyuk

Ukraine was also represented in doubles. Lyudmila Kichenok appeared in court with Alena Ostapenko. Last year, the Latvian-Ukraine duo reached the final but did not win the cup. History is cyclical, but with certain changes. Lyudmila and Alena, separated from Russian Lyudmila Samsonova and Veronika Kudermetovova in the semifinals of the tournament, could not defend the final.

Generally speaking, this week has been quite successful and interesting for the representatives of Ukraine. Many Ukrainian fans were really surprised that our tennis players began to return to their former form and show their full potential. Very soon, there will definitely be high-profile victories and trophies soon…

Getty Images/Global Images Ukraine. Barbora Krejcikova and Iga Sventek

Barbora Kreychikova won in singles. In the final of the tournament, he defeated the world’s first racket, Iga Sventek. Fiasco might not be the right word for Iga’s game, but this defeat was painful, unexpected and sensational to say the least. Before the final of the tournament in Dubai, Sventek won 6 games in a row (not counting the two draws of their opponents), took the trophy in Doha and gave only 14 games. But Barbara couldn’t beat it. Barbora, who won the WTA 1000 tournament for the first time, will rise to 18th place in the world ranking from the new week. For the Czech, this trophy was sixth in singles (five wins in WTA-level tournaments and one win at Roland Garros).

WTA 250 Merida

The WTA 250 series tournament in Merida was held on the courts of this Mexican city for the first time. Ukraine was supposed to be represented by two tennis players – Lesya Tsurenko and Katerina Bindl. However, Katerina, who was able to start from the base, withdrew from the competition due to health problems.

Tsurenko played well and properly in qualifying. Defeated Caroline Dolehide and Lucrezia Stefanini in the selection. But he could not continue on his victorious path. In the first round of the competition, world number one in doubles Katerina Sinyakova and ? He withdrew from the match due to a microtrauma after losing the first set.

Getty Images/Global Images Ukraine. Camila Giorgi

As a result, Camila Giorgi, who, according to most tennis fans, is the sex symbol of this game, won the trophy. Defeated Rebecca Peterson in the tournament final. For Camila, this is her fourth career trophy and her first since 2021.

ATP 500 Rio de Janeiro / ATP 250 Doha / ATP 250 Marseille

The first major clay tournament ended with the 19-year-old Carlos Alcaraz, the #1 seed, failing in the final. He failed to defend the trophy and was defeated in three sets by second-seeded Cameron Norrie. Carlos took the first game and won the second game 3-0, but did not retain the advantage and lost soon after.

Getty Images/Global Images Ukraine. Cameron Norrie and Carlos Alcaraz

Interestingly, the final in Rio was a kind of repetition of the final that took place a week earlier in Buenos Aires. Then again the first seeded Alcaraz and Norrie played for the trophy, but the Spaniard won.

The competitions in Doha left behind two good memories and one bad memory. Good, interesting and enjoyable – the successful debut of the first racket of Ukraine Oleksiy Krutykh and the finale of Andy Murray in tournaments at the ATP level. But about everything in order and the women’s tournament in Dubai.

Krutykh started qualifying by beating Matteo Arnaldi and Russia’s Pavel Kotov. The true and true did not shake Kotov’s hand. In the first round of basics, Alexey played with Liam Brody, played well, but lost in three sets. The Krutykh game really made a good impression and we hope that this year he can enter the top 100 in the ATP rating and adequately represent Ukraine in the men’s category.

Getty Images/Global Images Ukraine. Alexei Krutykh

Now let’s move on to the results of the tournament. In the final duel, Andy Murray and Russian Daniil Medvedev met. Unfortunately, the iron Andy could not punish the Russians from Monaco. Medvedev won the second championship in 2 weeks, while the representatives of Russia continue to play and win in the tennis arena, millions of Ukrainians die under Russian missiles … But it seems that the Asia-Pacific Region, WTA and ITF are not very interested in this because the Russians and Belarusians are under the white flag they play and “sports is outside of politics.”

Meanwhile, this season is going incredibly well for Andy. In this tournament, Murray defeated Lorenzo Sonego, Alexander Zverev, Alexander Muller and Jiri Lehechka. For Andy, by the way, this was the first final in 2023. This season the iron Andy has won 6 games, and in four of them he has saved the match point several times. Murray, 35, is a true fighter and a clear example of the fact that despite his age and injuries, you can still play, win and fight for trophies.

Getty Images/Global Images Ukraine. Andy Murray

Perhaps Marseille was the most uninteresting tournament this week, but even here the Ukrainian representative played. Last year, Denis Molchanov took the trophy in pairs, but was unable to defend the trophy and lost to French couple May and Martin in the quarterfinals. Denis played not with the Russian Andrei Rublev, as last year, but with Jonathan Eysserik …

Hubert Hurkacz took the singles trophy. Defeated Benjamin Bonzi in the final. For Hurkach, this was the seventh final and sixth title at ATP level. In 2021 he won the competition in Metz, France. Bonzi will return to the top fifty in the world rankings after the results of the competition in Marseille.

Getty Images/Global Images Ukraine. Hubert Hurkacz

Ukrainians in Challenger series tournaments

Ukraine was represented in this week’s contestants by Vitaliy Sachko, Ilya Marchenko and Vladislav Orlov. Vitaliy lost to Mariusz Kopil in the first round of qualifying for the tournament in Rovereto (Italy). Vladislav also lost to Jason Jang in the first selection round of the tournament in India. Ilya started on the basis of competition in Rome (USA), but lost to Ryan Harrison.

I really do not want to talk about the success of Vladislav Manafov. With Oleg Prikhodko, she reached the doubles final at the Roveto tournament. There, he lost to Ukrainian tandem Viktor Horn and Franko Skugor. But there are many questions for Manafov. Previously, he played with Ivan Lutarevich from Belarus, where he won two championships in a row. Now he played with the Ukrainian. Everything would be fine if Prikhodko was really Ukrainian … The fact is that besides playing with a Russian, he also meets a Russian tennis player, and not according to Sport.ua, it is quite true to the situation with the war launched by the Russian Federation against Ukraine. see way.

Belinsky’s success

Quite a few Ukrainians have played in ITF tournaments, but I would like to highlight Vyacheslav Belinsky. In the singles tournament of the ITF M15 series tournament in Napels (USA), Vyacheslav played poorly, promoting in the second round of the competition. However, he reached the doubles final with Ecuadorian Alvaro Guillain Meza, where he lost to Czech duo Jiri Jenicek and Danizl Pati.

19-year-old Vyacheslav made his third final in pairs at ITF tournaments. It has a title. At the end of January, he won his first trophy together with Ukrainian Ilya Beloborodko at the ITF M15 competition held in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania.

tennis off court

Ukrainian tennis legend Elina Svitolina has yet to play in tournaments, but she celebrated the birthday of her one-year-old dog, Wiz. The Ukrainian posted photos of his pet and signed them as follows:

“Our sweet bully is 1 year old today.”

In addition, this tennis week was commemorated with an interesting event in competitions in Rio as well as tennis. In the first round match of the tournament played between Briton Cameron Norrie and Argentina’s Juan Manuel Cherundolo, a crowd in the stands went into pain. The girl at the stadium was immediately hospitalized and gave birth to a baby girl named Victoria.

Naomi Osaka, the world’s first racket, reminded herself, who is now pregnant, by the way. Osaka has released a joint collection with the famous brand Victoria’s Secret.

“I was shocked but it turned out that I was the first person to collaborate with Victoria’s Secret on an entire collection. It is a great honor for me, I am very grateful.

Everything is made from recyclable materials and the collection in general is about chasing a dream. I hope you like it as much as I do,” Osaka wrote.