I caught the quarterfinals match of the Dubai Open between Ivan Ljubicic and Novak Djokovic. It ended in a Djokovic victory, 4-6, 6-4, 6-0. Ljubicic played well. He held his serve and broke Djokovic's, twice. The moment his serve got broken, he lost the set, lost the remaining of his serves and lost the game.

Ljubicic was very patient in the beginning, bided his time and waited for an opening. Ljubicic, the ex world number 3 looked like upsetting the tie, the fans and Djokovic to grab a totally unexpected win. But that was not to be. Ljubicic started to get aggressive, wanting to end the tie quickly, he started making runs to the net, trying drop shots and slices. Djokovic immediately capitalised, making Ljubicic run, made Ljubicic make mistakes by the truckload and himself playing some great tennis.

In the end, Ljubicic's body and luck lost out to Djokovic's. I guess Djokovic winning was an inevitability but Ljubicic did not deserve to lose 6-0 in the last set. When Djokovic broke Ljubicic's first serve of the third set, Ljubicic had a glazed look. His gaze was hollow. He had a look of resignation. His body language only asked for the match to be ended quickly. I felt so sad for him. One of the saddest recently, besides for myself of course. His will to win was gone. What was so close ended up being so far.

Djokovic ended the match quickly and put him out of his misery. It was cruel but this is tennis.