Jarkko Nieminen was a qualifier at the Sydney International and today he has walked away with the title. Jarkko defeated Julien Benneteau 6-2 7-5 in the final.
Jarkko Nieminen had a great tournament in Sydney which saw him defeat James Duckworth, Radek Stepanek, Bobby Reynolds, Denis Istomin and then Julien Benneteau. As you can see from his draw it ended up quite simple compared to other players.
p.s. Poor old Benneteau remains winless in six ATP World Tour finals.
Jelena Dokic has had over 15 years on tour, but she has been struggling of late with her nerves. Dokic was hammered at the Sydney International yesterday with a 6-0 6-3 loss to Marion Bartoli of France.
I froze out there … It was not about tennis. It was not about her being the better player. I just really, really got nervous. Yeah, I really froze. My legs and my arms and everything just couldn’t move.
It seems like Jelena has a lot of work to do before the Australian Open 2012.
Juan Martin Del Potro has just signed up for the Apia International in Sydney before the Australian Open 2012. This will be the second straight year that Del Potro competes at the event.
Sydney is a great city and I like the tournament very much, Del Potro said. In Sydney they gave me one of the first wildcards after my injury and I appreciate this very much from then.
Sydney has embarked on a secret initiative to snatch the Australian Open tennis tournament from Melbourne, the Sydney Morning Herald said, citing Events NSW Chief Executive Geoff Parmenter.
The pitch involves a plan to build a multimillion dollar stadium at Glebe Island, west of central Sydney, that could host the Grand Slam event once Melbourne’s contract expires in 2016, the newspaper reported.
Sydney will face competition from overseas cities, with Shanghai, Dubai and Abu Dhabi all preparing campaigns to hold the Asian Grand Slam event, the newspaper said. The Australian Open is worth more than A$100 million ($64 million) to Victoria state’s economy, it said.
