What you need to know about the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships

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The Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships is on in Dubai this week and next.

The female tournament has kicked off, concluding with the final on Sunday February 20th. The men’s tournament starts on Monday February 22nd with the final taking place on Sunday February 27th.

The tournament began as a men’s only competition in 1993 and has for the past 19 years attracted the ‘who’s who of tennis’. 

Roger

Roger with one of his seven trophies.

Roger Federer holds the records for most titles (seven), most finals (nine), and most consecutive titles (three), sharing the last record with Novak Djokovic. He couldn’t make it this year due to a knee injury.

Ana

Ana coasted to victory in the first round yesterday.

Former World #1 Ana Ivanovic is in town and kicked off her tournament with a first round 6-1 6-0 smashing of Australia’s Daria Gavrilova.

For those of you not overly interested in a small round yellow ball being hit at 100mph from one side of a net to another, tennis players like to party.

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Tennis players can take selfies too. Here’s Ana Ivanovic with the proof.

Last night Ana and other female stars attended the player’s party at the Dubai Duty Free Stadium. 

Simona

Reigning champ Simona Halep is back to defend her crown

Last year’s winner, Simona Halep is the top seed and favorite to win the women’s tournament. The 23-year-old is currently ranked #3 in the world. 

Simona reached the 2014 French Open final (her first Grand Slam final) where she played against Maria Sharapova, losing in three sets. She also reached the final of the WTA Finals the same year, losing to Serena Williams in straight sets after having defeated her earlier in the tournament.

Having recently recovered from injury, Simona is in town to defend her crown.

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simona celebrating winning last year’s championship

Tickets are still available for both the women’s and the men’s tournaments. If you want to go today, a basic grandstand ticket will cost you AED 75 and a Prime ticket for the whole week is a whopping AED 2,750. 

A grandstand ticket for the women’s final is AED 500 and AED 700 for the men’s

If you can’t skip off work but want to keep an eye on the action, the Dubai Tennis Champs are keeping their twitter feed updated so check it out. 

Now read: 20 amazing things for you to do in Dubai this February

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