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Racket Response: Fed, Rafa weekend

Tennis

Editor's note: Starting this Monday, our band of writers, near and far, will weigh in on all the major happenings in the tennis world. 

Carl Bialik, FiveThirtyEight.com: We'll have to wait a few more months to find out if Roger Federer will ever win another title at one of the four annual best-of-five-set Grand Slam events, which he hasn't done since 2012 Wimbledon. But this past weekend, he continued his dominant run at ATP World Tour, best-of-three-set, non-clay-court events. Federer has won 30 of his past 31 matches at that level, including his past 13. The 13th straight win came Saturday against No. 1 Novak Djokovic in the Dubai final, 6-3, 7-5. At Grand Slams, the 33-year-old Federer will likely be an underdog against Djokovic and No. 3 Rafael Nadal, and may drop the occasional match to less likely opponents, such as Andreas Seppi. In the short form of the sport, though, Federer has been holding his own with his best -- mostly younger -- peers lately. He has won 11 of his past 12 best-of-three matches against top-10 opponents, including two straight-sets wins over Djokovic. In Dubai, Federer dominated five opponents, never dropping a set or even playing a tiebreaker, thanks to a strong return game and his continued improvement as an enthusiastic and frequent net-rusher. He improved to a combined 22-0 against fellow veteran Mikhail Youzhny and Fernando Verdasco with just five sets lost. Federer increased his career mark to 14-2 against Richard Gasquet and routed Borna Coric a day after the 18-year-old Croat had routed Andy Murray. Then Federer improved to 20-17 against longtime rival Djokovic. It was a great week for Federer at any age -- and lately a typical one for him.

Peter Bodo, senior tennis writer, ESPN.com: Neither Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova nor Victoria Azarenka -- all three multiple Grand Slam champions, all three current or former number one players -- won a tournament this week. Yet it looks like all that recent talk about the unprecedented depth on the WTA Tour may have been wishful thinking. The WTA appears to have a Big Three as much as the ATP has a Big Four. Serena didn't play this week, but she re-established her dominance at the first Grand Slam event of the year. Sharapova had to withdraw from the Acapulco tournament at the semifinal stage because of a stomach bug, but her lone nemesis is Serena. Azarenka did play all the way through in Doha. She took a loss to Lucie Safarova in the final, but can attribute the result partly to the lingering rust in Azarenka's game as she struggles to regain her full mental and physical powers (Safarova had managed to win just one set in their six previous meetings). Before the final, Azarenka stopped one of the hottest players since last fall (Caroline Wozniacki) and one of the hottest in this new year (Venus Williams). It appears that Azarenka may be a devastating force once again by the time the majors roll around, and that's bad news for the likes of Wozniacki, Simona Halep, Petra Kvitova, Ana Ivanovic, Eugenie Bouchard, Jelena Jankovic, Agnieszka Radwanska (all former Grand Slam finalists or winners) and other contenders. Among them, only Kvitova and Halep have won tournaments this year -- and neither of them has been reliable at major events.

Greg Garber, senior writer, ESPN.com: Which doesn't belong and why? The Dubai semifinals featured No. 1-ranked Novak Djokovic, No. 2 Roger Federer, No. 8 Tomas Berdych -- and No. 84 Borna Coric, an 18-year-old from Croatia. The kid did some big talking early in the year, but now he's starting to walk the walk. He entered the Dubai tournament with all of two ATP wins on his 2015 resume (No. 80 Robin Haase and No. 65 Denis Istomin) and promptly lost in the last round of qualifying to Fabrice Martin -- in a three-set match that ended in a tiebreaker and ran 150 minutes. Through the magic of the lucky-loser concept, Coric snuck into the field when Philipp Kohlschreiber withdrew. He beat Malek Jaziri in the first round, then battled Marcos Baghdatis in the second, winning when Baghdatis retired with the score 6-all in the third set. That one made a certain sense, but how to process Coric's easy-peasy 6-1, 6-3 victory over Andy Murray, the No. 3-ranked player in the world? The 6-2, 6-1 loss to Roger Federer was predictable, not the Pete Sampras-Federer, passing-of-the-torch moment we saw at Wimbledon in 2001. Maybe next year.

Matt Wilansky, tennis editor, ESPN.com: David Ferrer sure chose a bad weekend to win a title. Considering the two behemoths in Roger Federer (Dubai) and Rafael Nadal (Argentina) went on title-winning runs the past two days, Ferrer garnered about as much notoriety as Igor Sijsling, a Dutch player who lost in the first round in Mexico. But when you think about it, that's Ferrer in a nutshell. He's made a sweet living doing things quietly, whether fair or not. In the Mexico Open final Sunday, the Spaniard outlasted top-seeded Kei Nishikori 6-3, 7-5 -- Ferrer's 23rd career championship. Amazingly, Ferrer is 18-1 this season with three titles, both tops on the ATP Tour. In winning his fourth title in Acapulco, Ferrer credited his indefatigable play, a resolve few players (if any) today can match. But the Ferrer notoriety problem is an obvious one. In a golden age of men's tennis in which three (sometimes four) players have utterly dominated, Ferrer, who is also a low-key guy, if not nondescript, hasn't found much of a window to shine. He's reached only a solitary Slam final and doesn't generate off-court headlines for antics or ill-founded quotes. He's merely a professional, perhaps to the extent of his own good.

ESPN.co.UK: Andy Murray has opened up as to why he chose the "extremely strong" Amelie Mauresmo as his next coach, and says the former world No.1 has had a "calming" influence over him. Murray said there has been a failure to recognize Mauresmo's influence over the changes in his mentality and his approach to games since they started working together in June. "Some people will never be satisfied unless I win a Grand Slam with Amelie," he told "The Sunday Times." "People will say she is not a good coach, but I know the reality. She is a good coach." Murray's decision to work with Mauresmo was heavily criticized after he capitulated against Roger Federer in the ATP finals in November, but he says the reaction was unjustified. "I didn't get it," he said. "I didn't see why everyone was blaming her. I hadn't seen that with any of the other coaches or ex-players where people have gone, 'Michael Chang is rubbish' or 'Ivan Lendl is rubbish' or Edberg or Becker." Murray joined forces with Mauresmo after ending his hugely successful pairing with Lendl, which included winning the US Open before lifting the Wimbledon trophy in 2013. "I had great success with Ivan Lendl," Murray said. "Was he a perfect coach? No. Was he a very good coach? Yeah. He had some very strong qualities and some things that weren't so good." After gaining a reputation as a player prone to letting the bigger occasions get the best of him, Murray praised Mauresmo's mental strength and the constructive nature of their relationship.

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