Kanepi pleased with Dubai debut despite form dip

Dubai: The manner in which her game disintegrated against Frenchwoman Virginie Razzano yesterday left debutant Estonia's Kaia Kanepi bemused but she still found more than one reason to be happy with herself following a dream run at the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships.

"There are so many good games that I have played here during the week and I can take a lot of positives from those matches," Kanepi told media after going down rather meekly in straight sets in the first singles semifinals against Frenchwoman Virginie Razzano yesterday.

Kanepi lost 6-1, 6-2 and was left wondering what happened to her game that had stood her in good stead for much of the week. "I really can't explain what happened to my game."

Getting analytical again, she reasoned: "I was more tired yesterday against Vesnina [Elena] and I tried to recover from that, and simply couldn't... Almost everything went wrong with my game today. My serves were bad, my baseline game did not come together and I ended up making too many mistakes."

Brightening up, she said: "There is nothing I can do at the moment, but learn from my mistakes and take the positives from the good matches that I have had here earlier during the week."

She disclosed that she has always done well playing in Dubai. She was the losing finalist years back at the Al Habtoor Challenge, a $75,000 annual competition on the ITF Women's Circuit. Her nemesis on that occasion had been another Marion Bartoli, Frenchwoman."Maybe I do well because I like the weather here," she said.