A few days before the start of the Mubadala World Tennis Championship in Abu Dhabi, Greg Sproule, the manager director of the tournament organisers IMG Middle East, claimed the competition was tailor-made for the needs of the capital.
"The timing of the event and the things that we built around it make it perfect just the way it is," he said. And proof of that claim was evident over three days last week when six of the world's best players battled it out for the first pay-cheque of the year.
From a fans' perspective, the event is like the final stages of a grand slam or any other major tournament. It is like editing out the first 12 days and heading straight to the business end, with Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer in the "semi-finals" against Tomas Berdych and Robin Soderling.
To add to the dream script, Federer and Nadal made it to the final and played a match was the envy of any top tournament.
Any duel between these two greats is always an occasion, but given the relatively pressure free environs of the championship, they could raise the entertainment quotient of their sublime games.
From the players' perspective, the tournament provides an opportunity to make an early start to the year, get away from the freezing winter and put their off-season work to the test against players they are likely to face in the crucial stages of future tournaments.
So, to concur with Sproule, the tournament is perfect as it is - both for the viewing pleasure of the fans and needs of the players.
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The biog
Family: wife, four children, 11 grandchildren, 16 great-grandchildren
Reads: Newspapers, historical, religious books and biographies
Education: High school in Thatta, a city now in Pakistan
Regrets: Not completing college in Karachi when universities were shut down following protests by freedom fighters for the British to quit India
Happiness: Work on creative ideas, you will also need ideals to make people happy
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Avatar: Fire and Ash
Director: James Cameron
Starring: Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldana
Rating: 4.5/5
Dust and sand storms compared
Sand storm
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Dust storm
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- Visibility: Hazy skies but less intense
- Duration: Can linger for days
- Travel distance: Long-range, up to thousands of kilometres
- Source: Can be carried from distant regions
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Publisher: Konami
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Rating: 4.5/5
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Directed by Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari
Starring Kangana Ranaut, Richa Chadha, Jassie Gill, Yagya Bhasin, Neena Gupta
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Profile of MoneyFellows
Founder: Ahmed Wadi
Launched: 2016
Employees: 76
Financing stage: Series A ($4 million)
Investors: Partech, Sawari Ventures, 500 Startups, Dubai Angel Investors, Phoenician Fund
The biog
Favourite colour: Brown
Favourite Movie: Resident Evil
Hobbies: Painting, Cooking, Imitating Voices
Favourite food: Pizza
Trivia: Was the voice of three characters in the Emirati animation, Shaabiyat Al Cartoon
Mina Cup winners
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Our legal columnist
Name: Yousef Al Bahar
Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994
Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
Our legal columnist
Name: Yousef Al Bahar
Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994
Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
UK’s AI plan
- AI ambassadors such as MIT economist Simon Johnson, Monzo cofounder Tom Blomfield and Google DeepMind’s Raia Hadsell
- £10bn AI growth zone in South Wales to create 5,000 jobs
- £100m of government support for startups building AI hardware products
- £250m to train new AI models
About Takalam
Date started: early 2020
Founders: Khawla Hammad and Inas Abu Shashieh
Based: Abu Dhabi
Sector: HealthTech and wellness
Number of staff: 4
Funding to date: Bootstrapped
The specs
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Desert Warrior
Starring: Anthony Mackie, Aiysha Hart, Ben Kingsley
Director: Rupert Wyatt
Rating: 3/5
What drives subscription retailing?
Once the domain of newspaper home deliveries, subscription model retailing has combined with e-commerce to permeate myriad products and services.
The concept has grown tremendously around the world and is forecast to thrive further, according to UnivDatos Market Insights’ report on recent and predicted trends in the sector.
The global subscription e-commerce market was valued at $13.2 billion (Dh48.5bn) in 2018. It is forecast to touch $478.2bn in 2025, and include the entertainment, fitness, food, cosmetics, baby care and fashion sectors.
The report says subscription-based services currently constitute “a small trend within e-commerce”. The US hosts almost 70 per cent of recurring plan firms, including leaders Dollar Shave Club, Hello Fresh and Netflix. Walmart and Sephora are among longer established retailers entering the space.
UnivDatos cites younger and affluent urbanites as prime subscription targets, with women currently the largest share of end-users.
That’s expected to remain unchanged until 2025, when women will represent a $246.6bn market share, owing to increasing numbers of start-ups targeting women.
Personal care and beauty occupy the largest chunk of the worldwide subscription e-commerce market, with changing lifestyles, work schedules, customisation and convenience among the chief future drivers.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
