Lopez wins 400th match of his career at Dubai Championships

World No. 1 Novak Djokovic and his rival No. 4 Stan Wawrinka said they feel prepared and highly motivated to win the 24th edition of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, which started here with the qualifying matches.

Monday night’s win in front of a near capacity Centre Court crowd means Djokovic is now one win away from his 700th ATP victory, and it will be the job of Tunisia’s Malek Jaziri to delay the 28-year-old Serbian from reaching that landmark.

“It’s important to balance well to recharge and gain freshness and continue playing on high level”, said Djokovic. “I wish to make the 700th win in this tournament, obviously”, said the world number one.

Djokovic broke twice in the first set and came close to going a break up early in the second, but Robredo managed to hold on.

U.S. Open champion Roberta Vinci celebrated her rise into the top 10 by dusting Lesia Tsurenko of Ukraine 6-2, 6-1. Served solid and was aggressive from back of the court.

The Court of Civil Appeals reinstated the Oklahoma Association of Broadcasters lawsuit against the city of Norman that was dismissed past year by Cleveland County District Judge Thad Balkman. “I’d still like to keep the same approach and philosophy that I’ve had, being in the present and only focusing on the next tournament”.

After winning 34 of his last 35 Grand Slam matches, it is not inconceivable that Djokovic could end up eclipsing Roger Federer’s record of 17 Majors before too long. It satisfies me very much. I can not be happier with this performance.

Sandwiched between the two matches is yet another veteran one-handed exponent, Feliciano Lopez, seeded No6, who was a finalist in Dubai more than a decade ago in 2004, when he lost to Federer, and again in 2008, when he lost to Andy Roddick.

Robredo’s resistance was broken in the next game and after successive breaks of serve, Djokovic closed the match out with another love service game. “He’s playing his best tennis now; he is beating everyone on the tour”. He will play the first round against Spain’s Tommy Robredo while Wawrinka will encounter Sergiy Stakhovski from Ukraine. “But, you know, I have nothing to lose!”

Also, fifth-seeded Viktor Troicki of Serbia was the first seed to fall in losing to Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus 7-6 (2), 6-2.