Roger Federer has been honing his culinary skills off the court in China this week, but the tennis star found himself seriously undercooked in the opening match of his Shanghai Masters title defense.
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The draw ceremony of the ATP 1000 tournament was held near Shanghai’s Bund on Saturday morning.
Top-seed Novak Djokovic, fresh from winning a sixth Beijing title, begins on Wednesday against Slovakia’s Martin Klizan.
So I’m going for Federer to give the current top man another reminder of who really is the greatest of all time and defend his title.
“I mean, it’s not the first time I’m playing back-to-back weeks”. The balls play very different than in other places. However, his tough competitor, Novak Djokovic, is reportedly a brutal reminder that Federer’s dream of becoming World No. 1 again won’t be easy.
Meanwhile, John Isner smashed 20 aces to defeat France’s Adrian Mannarino 6-1, 6-2 in 45 minutes in his opening match of the Masters on Monday. Unfortunately I couldn’t win the first set because I had to create my chances. “And this for me is another challenge”. None of these important matches, I won none of those ones.
There’s added incentive for the chasing pack in the battle for World Tour Finals qualification and the likes of Kei Nishikori, David Ferrer and Richard Gasquet will all be eager to rack up points. Wu is in the same half as Nadal, who is also in Beijing for the China Open.
Both Federer and Djokovic are taking part at the 2015 Shanghai Rolex Masters. He arrived on Friday evening.
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France in action against Spain’s Tommy Robredo.
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The qualifying rounds started today at Minhang’s Qizhong Tennis Center with the first round of matches scheduled for Sunday.
