Roger Federer and Serena Williams Defend Their Cincinnati Masters Crowns

Curtain came down on 2015 Western & Southern Cincinnati Matsers tennis tournament with both past singles champions successfully defending their 2014 titles. Playing marvelous tennis all week, Roger Federer defeated Serbia’s world no.1 and top seed Novak Djokovic, while Serena Williams braved a tough challenge thrown at her by Romania’s Simona Halep. The Swiss Maestro, who turned 34 two weeks ago, produced his best form against Djokovic, whose dreams of winning the career Golden Masters lay shattered. The Serb suffered his second successive tournament loss after he was beaten by Britain’s Andy Murray in the Rogers Cup final last week. Serena Williams’ victory was the 69th WTA title of her career. The amazing American will now look ahead to win her 22nd Grand Slam, when she goes to Flushing Meadows next week. Canada’s Daniel Nestor and his French partner Edouard Roger-Vasselin won the men’s doubles crown beating no.6 seeded Poland’s Marcin Matkowski and Serbian Nenad Zimonjic while the women’s doubles title was won by Taiwan’s Chan sisters, who defeated no.4 seeds Casey Dellacqua of Australia and Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan.

Defending champion Roger Federer won the Cincinnati Masters for a record seventh time by defeating the Serbian top seed Novak Djokovic on Sunday. Federer was miraculously effervescent and his service kept clicking against Djokovic. All through the week, Federer has been surprising his opponents with aggressive service returns and he did the same against the top seed. The victory did another thing for the Swiss; it brought him back to the no.2 spot in the ATP Emirates rankings released on Monday. That has a pleasant connotation for him because barring unforeseen upsets, he will not have to meet the Serb until the final of the US Open. Djokovic and Federer played an even game in the first set before the Serb lost the first set on a tie break 1-7. Thereafter, it was mostly a one-way traffic, beginning with the 28-year-old Djokovic double-faulting at break point in his first service game of the second set. Federer largely played an error-free game and when When Djokovic produced a long tired-looking backhand, Federer was through with a rather easy 7-6, 6-3 victory. Djokovic was crestfallen since it was a rare back-to-back loss in the course of just one week. He had some tough matches this week and suffered from a flared-up stomach strain in the semi-finals against Alexandr Dolgopolov. Federer took his ATP title tally to 87 and he goes to the US open with his confidence zooming sky-high.

Like Federer, USA’s Serena Williams also defended her title at Cincinnati. The American had a scratchy week in the tournament, including a scare from Serbia’s Ana Ivanovic in the quarterfinal. But in the final against Simona Halep of Romania, she produced her best game. Halep broke Serena early in the first set and raced away to a 3-1 lead. But the champion reeled off five straight points to win the set and leave Halep stranded. The second set was akin to a marathon and it lasted 67 minutes with Halep refusing to give in. Both players indulged in a high number of unforced errors and the set went to the tiebreak, which Serena won and took the match 6-3, 7-6. Serena is on line for her fourth Grand Slam of the year having already won at the Australian Open, French Open and Wimbledon.

Men’s doubles title at Cincinnati was won by the Canadian-French duo of Daniel Nestor/Edouard Roger-Vasselin, who defeated the Polish-Serbian combo of Marcin Matkowski/Nenad Zimonjic 6-2, 6-2 while the women’s doubles crown was taken by Taiwanese sisters, Hao-Ching Chan/Yung-Jan Chan, who defeated no.4 seeds Australia’s Casey Dellacqua and Kazakhstan’s Yaroslava Shvedova 7-5, 6-4.