Janko Tipsarevic injury puts even more pressure on Novak Djokovic

BELGRADE // With Serbia crippled by injuries and suspensions, all eyes will be on Novak Djokovic to lead his country to its second Davis Cup title, over the defending champions from the Czech Republic.

The second-ranked Serb, who is on a 22-match unbeaten run, has to do what he has done numerous times in the past: win both singles matches to give the small Balkan country a chance in the best-of-five series, starting Friday.

However, Serbia’s prospects grew dimmer yesterday when Janko Tipsarevic was ruled out of the final with a heel injury.

Serbia will also miss Viktor Troicki, the star of the 2010 Davis Cup home victory over France. Troicki is out because of a 12-month suspension for skipping a doping-test-related blood test in April.

The draw pitted Djokovic against Radek Stepanek and Tipsarevic’s replacement, Dusan Lajovic, against Tomas Berdych in Friday’s opening singles.

The doubles are scheduled for Saturday and the reverse singles will be contested Sunday.

“It’s a real drawback for our team that we don’t have both Janko and Viktor,” Djokovic said. “I hope that I can win the first match, the first point is very important as it could release pressure on Lajovic.”

The 117th-ranked Lajovic has played only one Davis Cup match, a dead rubber, and has no major victories against top players on the ATP Tour.

“I’m very excited that I’ll play on Friday,” Lajovic, 23, said. “With the support of the crowd, I could maybe surprise Berdych.”

Berdych said he has never watched Lajovic play and will try to adjust to his game. “I will do some scouting before the match,” Berdych said. “It is good that this is a best-of-five match and I’ll have time to adjust.”

Berdych, who has a 13-1 record in Davis Cup doubles with Stepanek, predicted the doubles will decide the winner.

Djokovic said that although he has not played many doubles matches in recent years, he would be ready on Saturday, if needed.

First, he has to focus on the match against Stepanek before deciding whether he would play the maximum three matches in three days.

“Stepanek is a very tricky player,” Djokovic said of the Czech veteran. “He likes to rush to the net and change the rhythm of the match.”

Stepanek said the fact that he is not favoured to win against Djokovic may help his play.

“I’m looking forward to it,” Stepanek said. “My advantage is that no one expects me to beat Novak.”

Djokovic has won his past four tournaments, including the ATP finals in London, where he beat the top-ranked Rafael Nadal 6-3, 6-4 in the final on Monday.

The Czechs are in the final for the third time in five years.

Another way to earn air miles

In addition to the Emirates and Etihad programmes, there is the Air Miles Middle East card, which offers members the ability to choose any airline, has no black-out dates and no restrictions on seat availability. Air Miles is linked up to HSBC credit cards and can also be earned through retail partners such as Spinneys, Sharaf DG and The Toy Store.

An Emirates Dubai-London round-trip ticket costs 180,000 miles on the Air Miles website. But customers earn these ‘miles’ at a much faster rate than airline miles. Adidas offers two air miles per Dh1 spent. Air Miles has partnerships with websites as well, so booking.com and agoda.com offer three miles per Dh1 spent.

“If you use your HSBC credit card when shopping at our partners, you are able to earn Air Miles twice which will mean you can get that flight reward faster and for less spend,” says Paul Lacey, the managing director for Europe, Middle East and India for Aimia, which owns and operates Air Miles Middle East.

Dubai works towards better air quality by 2021

Dubai is on a mission to record good air quality for 90 per cent of the year – up from 86 per cent annually today – by 2021.

The municipality plans to have seven mobile air-monitoring stations by 2020 to capture more accurate data in hourly and daily trends of pollution.

These will be on the Palm Jumeirah, Al Qusais, Muhaisnah, Rashidiyah, Al Wasl, Al Quoz and Dubai Investment Park.

“It will allow real-time responding for emergency cases,” said Khaldoon Al Daraji, first environment safety officer at the municipality.

“We’re in a good position except for the cases that are out of our hands, such as sandstorms.

“Sandstorms are our main concern because the UAE is just a receiver.

“The hotspots are Iran, Saudi Arabia and southern Iraq, but we’re working hard with the region to reduce the cycle of sandstorm generation.”

Mr Al Daraji said monitoring as it stood covered 47 per cent of Dubai.

There are 12 fixed stations in the emirate, but Dubai also receives information from monitors belonging to other entities.

“There are 25 stations in total,” Mr Al Daraji said.

“We added new technology and equipment used for the first time for the detection of heavy metals.

“A hundred parameters can be detected but we want to expand it to make sure that the data captured can allow a baseline study in some areas to ensure they are well positioned.”

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While you're here

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The more serious side of specialty coffee

While the taste of beans and freshness of roast is paramount to the specialty coffee scene, so is sustainability and workers’ rights.

The bulk of genuine specialty coffee companies aim to improve on these elements in every stage of production via direct relationships with farmers. For instance, Mokha 1450 on Al Wasl Road strives to work predominantly with women-owned and -operated coffee organisations, including female farmers in the Sabree mountains of Yemen.

Because, as the boutique’s owner, Garfield Kerr, points out: “women represent over 90 per cent of the coffee value chain, but are woefully underrepresented in less than 10 per cent of ownership and management throughout the global coffee industry.”

One of the UAE’s largest suppliers of green (meaning not-yet-roasted) beans, Raw Coffee, is a founding member of the Partnership of Gender Equity, which aims to empower female coffee farmers and harvesters.

Also, globally, many companies have found the perfect way to recycle old coffee grounds: they create the perfect fertile soil in which to grow mushrooms.