Qatar Welcomes Tennis Super Stars

Switzerlands’s Roger Federer arrived in Doha today for the start of the Qatar Exxon Mobil Open 2012 – celebrating the 20th anniversary of the event. He was greeted at the airport by Qatar Tennis Federation President, Nasser Ghanim Al Khaleifi and Qatar Exxon Mobil Open 2012 Tournament Director, Karim Alami. He finished 2011 by winning the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals and looks to start his ATP World Tour season by playing Russian Nikolay Davydenko – a repeat of last year’s final in Doha.

Play Begins at Qatar Exxon Mobil Open 2012

Day One of the Qatar Exxonmobil Open 2012 saw No. 8 seed Andreas Seppi of Italy take on Poland’s Lukasz Kubot to start the matches on Center Court. Seppi easily won 6-3, 6-2. The official opening match of the tournament followed when No. 5 seed Viktor Troicki of Serbia faced Lukas Rosol of the Czech Republic and Troicki won 6-4, 7-6(4). No. 6 seed, Russia’s Alex Bogomolov, lost the first set to Italy’s Filippo Volandri but battled back to win the match 5-7, 6-4, 6-2.

The final round of qualifying matches were played on the outer courts on Monday and the four players who qualified for the main draw were Denis Gremelmayr of Germany, Roberto Bautista-Agut of Spain, Grega Zemlja of Slovakia and Matthias Bachinger.

Around the grounds, fans spotted some of their favorite players as Swiss master Roger Federer hosted a kid’s clinic on Court 6 and Andreas Seppi of Italy visited the ExxonMobil sponsor booth to sign autographs.

More information and news at www.qatartennis.org