Andy Murray beat Mikhail Youzhny in the Valencia final on Sunday: 6-3, 6-2. Murray, the tournament’s top-seed, was playing his first tournament after six weeks off recovering from a wrist injury.

Here’s Murray’s post-match interview:

And some highlights from the match:

Andy “the teetotal” Murray goes into the Paris Masters tournament with an undefeated indoor record for 2009: 12-0. He and Roger Federer are on the same side of the draw. Djokovic or Nadal could await in the final.

“This is how you do it, Mikhail”:

REUTERS/Soren Andersson (SWEDEN SPORT TENNIS) via Daylife

Marcos Baghdatis won his first ATP title since 2007 on Sunday beating fellow un-seeded player, Olivier Rochus at the Stockholm Open: 6-1, 7-5. To be fair to Olivier, the diminutive Belgian played a three set semifinal on Saturday against Thomaz Bellucci while Marcos got a walkover from Robing Soderling. But a win’s a win, and Marco’s third career ATP title is sure to give him some much-needed confidence going into next season.

The 2006 Australian Open finalist has been slumping hard for the last couple seasons, due to everything from injury to “personal problems” to a reputed lack of motivation. He’s been bumping around the Challenger circuit for a while, winning three such titles this year, including one in Tashkent last week. Now ranked No. 66 in the world and still only 24 years old, Baghdatis may still have a bright future in front of him, but there’s plenty of hard work to do before he’s back into the top 10, where he stayed for 13 weeks in 2006.

Perhaps this fall from grace has renewed Baghdatis’s work ethic a little bit:

“I’ll work hard in the off-season so I can start the year strong next year and try and be more consistent and play a full year.  It’s been a tough last two weeks for me – I’ve played 10 matches and won all all of them so of course I am a bit tired now.  I’m going to rest for a few days before playing my last tournament, a Challenger in South Korea.”

Marcos on his (non)goals for next season:

“No limits. I don’t want to put any limits. I don’t want to put any goals. I want to go out there and win every match I play and try to be more consistent than before.”

Let’s hope the charismatic Cypriot makes his comeback stick.

Also back from a relatively so-so year is Mikhail Youzhny, who made it to the finals of Tokyo a couple weeks ago and won the title this weekend at the Kremlin Cup. He beat Janko Tisparevic - who was (somewhat surprisingly) playing in his first-ever ATP tour final – in three sets: 6-7(5), 6-0, 6-4.

On the ladies’ side in Moscow, Francesca Schiavone won the second WTA tour title of her career, beating unseeded Olga Govortsova: 6-3, 6-0. This improves the Italian’s dismal win-loss record in finals to 2-10. Ouch!

The all-Russian pairing of Maria Kirilenko and Nadia Petrova took the doubles title in Moscow.

REUTERS/Sebastien Pirlet   (LUXEMBOURG SPORT TENNIS) via Daylife

In Luxembourg, Timea Bacsinszky, a 20 year old from Switzerland, could teach Francesca a thing or two about playing in finals. The first-time WTA tour finalist took out the No. 6 seed, Sabine Lisicki for the title: 6-2, 7-5. Of course sometimes the first time is the easiest:

“I’m really happy with the way everything went today. I played in a smart way and just went for it. I wasn’t nervous at all. It’s great to win my first title. I don’t think I’ve realized what it means for me yet.” (via Miami Herald)

This coming week, the WTA plays the tour ending championships in Doha. The ATP soldiers on, with 250-level tournaments in St. Petersburg (Safin, Youzhny, Gasquet), Lyon (Tsonga, Simon) and Vienna (Cilic, Monfils, Stepanek) this week.

Alas, we have to wait another week until Roger Federer makes his comeback in Basel (I was thinking/hoping it was this week, for some reason.) The field in Basel is looking really good – Juan Martin del Potro and Novak Djokovic will be there. Can’t wait!

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga won the Japan Open title on Sunday, beating Mikhail Youzhny 6-3, 6-3 in just over an hour. It wasn’t the most dramatic match, but it’s always nice to see the top seed make good, especially when that top seed is the gallant Jo-Wilfried. And we were treated to a snazzy trophy, too – I call this one Mr. Roboto:

After the match, I realized that Tsonga and Youzhny perform my two favorite post-victory routines:

There’s Tsonga’s  exultant victory dance:

And Youzhny’s racquet salute:

Not to be confused with Youzhny’s racquet self-flagellation routine:

Side note – I also like Paradorn’s:

This one’s good, too:

Now, back to this weekend’s winners. . .

Novak Djokovic continued his perfect record against Marin Cilic, bringing the head-to-head to 4-0 after beating him 6-2, 7-6 (4) in the China Open final. It’s a nice win for Nole, who has now won three titles out of the eight finals he’s played this season.

After the match, Nole gave some smart answers to some Dumb Press Conference Questions:

Q: As a Serbian is there a special feeling to play against a Croatian?
DJOKOVIC: It doesn’t make any difference to be honest if I’m playing Croatian or whoever I’m playing. He’s one of my best friends, and I have always had best relations on the Tour with Serbian and Croatian guys, so it doesn’t make any difference to me.

Q: It seems Chinese women are delighted by your charms. How do you feel about Chinese women?
DJOKOVIC: I don’t want to talk about too much details about what do I like in Chinese women or not. Certainly it’s flattering when I hear that I have so many fans in China, and it’s been a great experience for me participating in the tournaments here in Asia and in China especially where I’ve had the most amazing presence and situations that I’ve ever faced with a fan. Last year in Shanghai I got a letter from one fan that said she was waiting for 32 hours to see me and she got a hug, and that was the best moment of her life. When somebody tells you something like that, you must be very fulfilled. It’s a pleasure for me to win the title in front of those people.

Svetlana Kuznetsova beat Agnieszka Radwanska for the women’s China Open title: 6-2, 6-4. Sveta is already guaranteed a spot in the Year End Championships, but the $775,500 in prize money was likely reward enough. Though she admitted after the match “I didn’t realize that it (China Open) was such a high category and the amount of prize money until this morning.” Well, at least I’m not the only one who’s confused by the WTA’s tournament ranking system.

This photo really confused me:

In doubles action, the Bryan Brothers won their sixth title of the year with a dominant 6-4, 6-2 victory over the first-time pairing of Mark Knowles and Andy Roddick. But it’s nice to see a little friendly body bumping between opponents. (It’s hand’s down, belly out, Andy!)

In Tokyo,  Austrians Julian Knowle and Jurgen Melzer won their second doubles title of the season after edging Ross Hutchins and Jordan Kerr 6-2, 5-7, 10-8.

Next up for the guys is the Shanghai Masters (actually, it’s already started!) and the WTA plays on in Linz and Osaka.

World No. 15, Marin Cilic, steamrolled Rafael Nadal in Beijing, winning 6-1, 6-3. Here’s an interesting post-match comment from Rafa:

“I can accept to win and I can accept to lose but mentally probably I wasn’t there. If you’re losing 6-1, 6-3 then there’s something wrong.”

It is very rare for Rafa not to be “there” in a match and even rarer for him to admit it. But with Shanghai coming up next week, he may welcome the extra day or two of rest.

Cilic, who shocked tournament favorite Andy Murray at the US Open this year, said today’s key was confidence:

“From the beginning of the match to end I didn’t let my level of play drop. With more confidence and not giving him too much time to adjust. And I was aggressive when I had to be. In the second set when he came back the match wasn’t easy but I think I kept with what I did in the first set and the best thing was that I didn’t back off and I was just stubborn with my style of play.”

Marin will play Novak Djokovic for the title, after Nole beat Robin Soderling 6-3, 6-3 in the other semi. There was more on the line for Nole than a place in the finals. Today’s win also puts him back at No. 3, a spot he lost to Murray in May of this year. He’s happy to be back:

“I’m very pleased obviously (with retaking No. 3). You know I’ve been No.3 for a while and Murray played well last eight months and got 2nd in the world. What makes best for me is that I deserve it. For this sport it’s always best to have players switching spots at the top- makes it interesting and gives crowd something to cheer about.”

Novak Djokovic has beaten Cilic all three times they’ve played.

Agnieszka Radwanska is back in the top 10 after beating Marion Bartoli in the women’s semis, and will face Svetlana Kuznetsova (who beat Petrova) in the China Open final.

Sveta leads their head-to-head, 5-3.

In cool doubles news from the China Open, the home crowd had something to cheer about as the Chinese team of Peng Shuai and Hsieh Su-Wei beat Alla Kudryavtseva and Ekaterina Makarova in the women’s doubles final. Awesome trophy, China Open! I’m voting it best non-slam trophy of the year (It’s right up there with Queen’s Club, which never changes, anyway.)

Andy Roddick and his partner, Mark Knowles, beat Dlouhy/Kohlschreiber in the men’s doubles semi-finals (4-6, 6-4, 10-7) and will take on the Bryan Brothers for the title. Nice to see Andy Roddick making the most of his time in Beijing. Love the photo above because you can read Andy Roddick’s thoughts: “Dude, it’s just doubles.”

In Tokyo, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga will play Mikhail Youzhny in the final of the Japan Open. Tsonga leads the head-to-head 1-0 and is looking to become the third French player to win an ATP title in as many weeks (Monfils won Metz and Simon won Bangkok.) Now will on of the French guys step it up next year and win a Major already? That mean’s you, Jo-Willy.

All photos by OSportsAgency.

The men put in a good day’s work on Day Four of the US Open on Thursday, including some solid wins by Tommy Haas, Fernando Verdasco, Novak Djokovic and Tommy Robredo. Here are some of our snapshots.

*fellow bloggers are more than welcome to use our photos, please link us if you do.

 

Eight teams remain in contention to win the Davis Cup for their countries. They will battle each other in various (mostly European) cities this weekend – July 10 – 12.

Only a sport as crazy as tennis would schedule the quarterfinals of its premier team event the weekend after its premier tournament. Roddick, Ferrer, Nadal and Tursunov have pulled out with injury, and Marat Safin claims a lot of the remaining players are hurting (or else he’s playing possum). But it’s cute men in matching tracksuits, so at least they’re looking good!

Here are the basics, including the necessary (Marat Safin) photos and quotes.

CZECH REPUBLIC v ARGENTINA

Venue: Cez Arena, Ostrava (hard – indoors)

“We’re here to avenge the beating.” – Tomas Berdych via CBS, on losing 0-5 to the Argentines when they last met in D.C.

Team Czech Republic: Tomas Berdych, Radek Stepanek, Ivo Minar, Lukas Dlouhy/Captain: Jaroslav Navratil

Team Argentina: Juan Martin Del Potro, Jose Acasuso, Leonardo Mayer, Juan Monaco/Captain: Tito Vazquez

CROATIA v USA

Venue: Sportska Dvorana “Zatika”, Porec (clay – indoors)

“Andy has been a stalwart for this team the past nine years, and his dedication to Davis Cup and his teammates is unquestioned.” – Captain Patrick McEnroe via CBS.

“It’s worse for us (than if Andy played.) Instead of an injured Roddick, who after such a final at Wimbledon would have had to play matches on clay, we’ll have to face a motivated Fish.” – Captain Goran Prpic via CBS.

Team Croatia: Marin Cilic, Ivo Karlovic, Roko Karanusic, Lovro Zovko/Captain: Goran Prpic

Team USA: Mardy Fish (replaced Andy Roddick), James Blake, Mike Bryan, Bob Bryan/Captain: Patrick McEnroe

(That’s Patrick McEnroe pretending to return Dr. Ivo’s serve.)

ISRAEL v RUSSIA

Venue: Sport Palaces Ltd (Nokia), Tel Aviv (hard – indoors)

“Not one of us is in shape, save for Igor (Andreev) – there’s nothing to hide about it. . .I hope we’ll be okay.” – Marat Safin via Haaretz

Team Israel: Dudi Sela, Haral Levy, Jonathan Erlich, Andy Ram/Captain: Eyal Ran

Team Russia: Igor Kunitsyn (replaced Dmitry Tursunov), Marat Safin, Igor Andreev, Mikhail Youzhny/Captain: Shamil Tarpischev

(Don’t worry, there’s plenty more Marat in the photo gallery, below! This may be his last time in a tracksuit, before he gets a Shamil-style belly and becomes DC captain in 2029. Sob!)

SPAIN v GERMANY

Venue: Plaza de Toros de Puerto Banus, Marbella (clay – outdoors)

“Nadal is not well and we have to let him rest.” Albert Costa via CBC

Team Spain: Fernando Verdasco, Tommy Robredo, Juan Carlos Ferrero (replaced David Ferrer), Feliciano Lopez/Captain: Albert Costa

Team Germany: Philipp Kohlschreiber, Nicolas Kiefer, Mischa Zverev, Andreas Beck/Captain: Patrick Kuhnen

(What does Philipp know that we don’t?)

Click here for the Davis Cup website.

 

All gallery photos via Daylife.

Team USA Tracksuits photo by REUTERS/Nikola Solic (CROATIA SPORT TENNIS)

Patrick McEnroe gets goosed. REUTERS/Nikola Solic (CROATIA SPORT TENNIS)

Team Russian Tracksuits photo by AP Photo/Ariel Schalit

Marat Safin stands alone in hotness photo by JACK GUEZ/AFP/Getty Images

Team Spain photo by REUTERS/Jon Nazca (SPAIN SPORT TENNIS)

Philipp Kohlschreiber remembers Roland Garros. REUTERS/Jon Nazca (SPAIN SPORT TENNIS)

Everyone has seen this I know. But it’s a must for Video of the Day