Swiss world No 4 Stan Wawrinka, left, and Cypriot world No 57 Marcos Baghdatis, right, will contest the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships final. (Ali Haider / EPA)
Swiss world No 4 Stan Wawrinka, left, and Cypriot world No 57 Marcos Baghdatis, right, will contest the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships final. (Ali Haider / EPA)

Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships final: Time, TV, what to watch for



The National's Ahmed Rizvi and Jon Turner are at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships to bring you live reports from the ATP tournament. Check back for up-to-the-minute updates.

First read

Jon Turner on Marcos Baghdatis: 'It's all about fighting' – Cypriot brings tenacious-as-ever style to final

Ahmed Rizvi on Stan Wawrinka: Swiss holds steady, brings star power to Dubai final

Order of play

Doubles final (5pm): Simone Bolelli (ITA) / Andreas Seppi (ITA) vs Feliciano Lopez (ESP) / Marc Lopez (ESP)

Singles final (7pm): 2-Stan Wawrinka (SUI) vs Marcos Baghdatis (CYP)

*Matches can be seen on Abu Dhabi Sports 6

Tale of the tape

Stan Wawrinka v Marcos Baghdatis

Age: Wawrinka 30; Baghdatis 30

Nationality: Wawrinka – Swiss; Baghdatis – Cyrpriot

Ranking: Wawrinka – No 4; Baghdatis – No 57

Head-to-head: 7-0 Wawrinka

Best previous Dubai result: Wawrinka – first round (2006, 08); Baghdatis – semi-final (2010)

2016: Wawrinka 8-2; Baghdatis 3-3

Path to the final

Wawrinka

First round bt Sergiy Stakhovsky 5-7, 6-3, 7-5

Second round bt Franco Skugor 7-5, 6-1

Quarter-finals bt Philipp Kohlschreiber 7-5, 6-1

Semi-final bt Nick Kyrgios 6-4, 3-0 (retire)

Baghdatis

First round bt Viktor Troicki 7-6 (7/2), 6-2

Second round bt Vasek Pospisil 6-4, 6-2

Quarter-finals bt Roberto Bautista Agut 7-5, 6-0

Semi-final bt Feliciano Lopez 3-6, 7-6 (7/1), 6-1

What to watch for

Wawrinka, a winner of the Australian Open and French Open in the last three years, will be the overwhelming favourite against Cypriot veteran Baghdatis in the final. The Swiss’ backhand is one of the great weapons in all of tennis, and finally started to sharpen on Friday in his semi-final win over Nick Kyrgios after a week in which he had largely looked less than his best.

But Baghdatis, whose style is as close as could be described as ‘brawling’ as you’ll find in tennis, showed great guile and resilience in battling back from a set down to oust another overwhelming favourite, Feliciano Lopez, on Friday night. The 30-year-old showed he can also still play the lines with the best of them, and his visible emotion on the court in the semi against Lopez showed what it would mean to him to win his first ATP title since 2010 here. Motivation will definitely be in his favour.

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The specs

Engine: Four electric motors, one at each wheel

Power: 579hp

Torque: 859Nm

Transmission: Single-speed automatic

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Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
 
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
 
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
 
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
 
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
Country-size land deals

US interest in purchasing territory is not as outlandish as it sounds. Here's a look at some big land transactions between nations:

Louisiana Purchase

If Donald Trump is one who aims to broker "a deal of the century", then this was the "deal of the 19th Century". In 1803, the US nearly doubled in size when it bought 2,140,000 square kilometres from France for $15 million.

Florida Purchase Treaty

The US courted Spain for Florida for years. Spain eventually realised its burden in holding on to the territory and in 1819 effectively ceded it to America in a wider border treaty. 

Alaska purchase

America's spending spree continued in 1867 when it acquired 1,518,800 km2 of  Alaskan land from Russia for $7.2m. Critics panned the government for buying "useless land".

The Philippines

At the end of the Spanish-American War, a provision in the 1898 Treaty of Paris saw Spain surrender the Philippines for a payment of $20 million. 

US Virgin Islands

It's not like a US president has never reached a deal with Denmark before. In 1917 the US purchased the Danish West Indies for $25m and renamed them the US Virgin Islands.

Gwadar

The most recent sovereign land purchase was in 1958 when Pakistan bought the southwestern port of Gwadar from Oman for 5.5bn Pakistan rupees. 

THE SPECS

Engine: 6.75-litre twin-turbocharged V12 petrol engine 

Power: 420kW

Torque: 780Nm

Transmission: 8-speed automatic

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Emergency

Director: Kangana Ranaut

Stars: Kangana Ranaut, Anupam Kher, Shreyas Talpade, Milind Soman, Mahima Chaudhry 

Rating: 2/5

Dubai Bling season three

Cast: Loujain Adada, Zeina Khoury, Farhana Bodi, Ebraheem Al Samadi, Mona Kattan, and couples Safa & Fahad Siddiqui and DJ Bliss & Danya Mohammed 

Rating: 1/5

Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”

COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
 
Started: 2020
 
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
 
Based: Dubai, UAE
 
Sector: Entertainment 
 
Number of staff: 210 
 
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
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Brief scores

Toss India, chose to bat

India 281-7 in 50 ov (Pandya 83, Dhoni 79; Coulter-Nile 3-44)

Australia 137-9 in 21 ov (Maxwell 39, Warner 25; Chahal 3-30)

India won by 26 runs on Duckworth-Lewis Method

The biog

Siblings: five brothers and one sister

Education: Bachelors in Political Science at the University of Minnesota

Interests: Swimming, tennis and the gym

Favourite place: UAE

Favourite packet food on the trip: pasta primavera

What he did to pass the time during the trip: listen to audio books