It was payback time for Novak Djokovic. The world no.1 avenged his Dubai Open loss against Roger Federer and won the men’s singles title by beating the Swiss in the final of the BNP Paribas Open. Women’s no.3 seed Simona Halep recorded her career’s biggest win by coming back from the brink and handing a defeat to 2010 champion Jelena Jankovic. The men’s doubles crown was won by the Canadian/American combo of Vasek Pospisil and Jack Sock, for whom it was the third title as a team. Pospisil/Jack scored a hard-fought win over Australian Open champions Simone Bolelli and Fabio Fognini. The women’s doubles crown went to the new Indo/Swiss pair of Sania Mirza and martina Hingis, who had an easy final against Russians Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina. With all finals completed, curtain came down on the 2015 BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells Tennis Gardens in California.
Spectators at Indian Wells could not have it so good when they were treated to the tennis standard of the highest quality on Sunday night. Watching the two living legends play their 38th match gave an impression to viewers that both Djokovic and Federer will still be on top of the game for some more time in the immediate future. While at 27, Djokovic could play longer than the Federer, the Swiss is displaying enormous consistency in the game for his 33 years. Despite the talk of younger breed challenging the big four, Djokovic, Federer, Nadal and Murray continue to maintain a surprising level of greatness in their performances. On Sunday, Djokovic captured his 50th tour-level title, when he lifted the BNP Paribas Open trophy for the fourth time with a 6-3, 6-7, 6-2 victory over Roger Federer. It was nearly similar in 2014, when the Serb had taken the crown with a three-set victory over the legendary Swiss.
Federer had a bad first set in which he allowed Djokovic to take advantage of a number of errors that he made. Somehow Federer saved a break point against the Serb in the fourth game but yielded 3 more break-opportunities in the sixth at 0-40. Federer rallied to deuce but Djokovic earned another break-point and converted it. After losing the first set 3-6, the Swiss came back strongly in the second but squandered a break opportunity early. Though Djokovic broke for a 2-1 lead, Federer broke back in the eighth game and forced a tie break afterwards. Two rare double faults from the Serb allowed Federer to take the second set on tie-break. In the third set, the determined Djokovic broke Federer early for a 2-0 lead. Federer broke right back but could not keep the momentum going. In the middle of the set, Federer appeared to have lost focus and that allowed Djokovic a 4-2 lead. From here, there were no more comebacks for the Swiss as Djokovic reeled off the last two games to take the match 6-3, 6-7, 6-2 in 2 hours 17 minutes.
In the women’s singles final, Simona Halep of Romania looked down and out against 2010 Champ Jelena Jankovic of Serbia until late in the second set. It was a tense encounter between the 23 year old Romanian and 30 year old former world no.1. Both players had an error-prone game and each was broken 9 times in the match. Jankovic dominated the first set, playing with freedom and took points from Halep without difficulty. After she won the first set 6-2, she took an early 3-1 lead. At 5-4 Jankovic was ready to serve for the match but from there Halep seized the initiative after her toe was attended by a physio. The Romanian broke Jankovic to level the set score to 5-5 and reeled off two consective points to take the second set 7-5. In the final set, both players struggled on their serves but in the ninth game, Halep broke to lead 5-4 with his service coming up. In the 10th game, the Romanian didn’t make any mistake and cruised to her 11th WTA title.
In the men’s doubles final, Canadian Vasek Pospisil and American Jack Sock defeated the Italian pair of Simone Bolelli and Fabio Fognini in a close match. After taking the first set at 6-4, Pospisil/Sock lost the second in the tie break but played tenaciously in the match tie breaker to capture the doubles crown with a tense 6-4, 6-7, 10-7 victory.
In the women’s doubles, no.1 seeded India’s Sania Mirza and Switzerland’s veteran Martina Hingis had an easy 6-3, 6-4 victory over Russians Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina. Playing for the first time as a pair, the Indo-Swiss duo exhibited great domination and never dropped a set through their passage in the tournament. Not only that, they did not yield more than 4 points in any set in any of their matches.
