Andy Murray has defeated Flavio Cipolla of Italy in the second round of the Rogers Cup. Murray won the match easily and smashed his opponent in the straight sets by 6-1, 6-3. Murray has been in fine form in the last few months. He won the gold medal in the men’s tennis singles competition of the London Olympics by defeating Roger Federer in the final a few days ago. Murray has been given the second seed in the competition. He took just 82 minutes to cruise to the third round.
The British superstar was in a furious mood right from the beginning of the match. The Italian player was able to win only one game in the first set. Murray got two breakthroughs (in the second game and in the sixth game) in the first set and won the first set without having any problem. After losing the first set, Cipolla lifted the standard of his game and played some good shots in the second set. Read more »
British Tennis star, Andy Murray, has said that Wimbledon final is history now and he would have to concentrate on the upcoming matches now. He said that it was really disappointing to lose the Wimbledon final. He said that he was not able to stand up to the expectations of the huge crowd that had come to see the final of Wimbledon Championship. As per Murray, that defeat hurt him a lot. But, he would have to forget that and concentrate on the London Olympics now. Murray had been defeated by World’s no. 1 and one of the greatest tennis players of all times, Roger Federer, in the final of the Wimbledon Championship. Murray went into tears after the match.
Meanwhile, he has thanked the people of England for giving him such immense support. Before Murray, no British player had reached to the final of Wimbledon Championship since 1938. Also, No British player has won a Wimbledon title since 1936. The last British player to win the Wimbledon title was Fred Perry, who won the title in 1936. The People of England were hoping that Murray would become the first British player to win the Wimbledon title in 76 years. But, that didn’t happen. However, Murray had started pretty well in the final and had won the first set 6-4. But, after that, Federer didn’t give Murray any chance. He played some high quality tennis after the first set and won the next three sets by 7-5, 6-3 and 6-4. It was the 17th Grand Slam title for Roger Federer.
However, Murray, who is currently positioned at no. 4 in the world rankings, said that he has again got a chance to stand up to the expectations of British Spectators in the London Olympics. He said that he would give his best in the London Olympics and would try to win the Gold medal for his country.
New world number one Roger Federer is confident that British player Andy Murray will bounce back from his defeat to him at the final of Wimbledon and added that he at least has one Grand Slam title in him.
Speaking at the post match interview on court, Federer, who was extremely emotional having won his seventh and record equaling Wimbledon title stated that Murray had just been unlucky in his quest for a Grand Slam title.
This was the fourth time that Murray had reached a Grand Slam final and has lost all four of those finals, three of those defeats coming against Federer himself and the other against the former world number one Novak Djokovic. Read more »
Andy Murray came through a challenging four set encounter in 4 sets with the Croatian giant Ivo Karlovic on Thursday afternoon. The match was always going to be a completely different affair to Murray’s thrashing of Davydenko in the first round, and it took all the Scot’s determination to keep his own serve strong while taking advantage of any hint of weakness in the Karlovic serve. At 6’ 10” the Croat is the biggest player on tour and his serve is everything you would expect from a man of this stature. With second serves regularly coming Murray’s way at 120mph or more, his defence had to be spot on, and for most of the time it was.
The first set was a close affair but Andy pulled ahead on serve to 6-5, then created a set point with a backhand winner. Throughout the match Karlovic gave away foot faults, much to his own frustration, and this was the case on his first serve at set point. This clearly distracted him and he netted his second serve to give Murray a one set lead. The second set was even closer, going to a tie break which Karlovic edged 7-5, making it ten wins out of the last 11 tie breaks. The Scot finally gained some significant momentum in the second set, breaking twice and winning comfortably before Karlovic upped his game again in the fourth. This saw another tie break, but Murray held his nerve and at 4-4 the Croat double faulted giving his opponent a match point which he took with aplomb, finishing the match 6-4 6-7 (5-7) 6-2 7-6 (7-4).
“Winning is all that’s important when you’re playing a guy with his style,” a visibly relieved Murray said after the match. “It’s so challenging to get into a rhythm.” The world number four was also happy with the way he played the tie breaks, thinking of Ivo’s exemplary record in this area of the game. “Tie-breaks are a bit of a lottery with someone like Karlovic. You have to get your racquet on returns and hope he makes a mistake. I was seeing the ball fairly well on the return, I was hitting it cleanly on the forehand and I came up with good passing shots at the right time.”
Andy Murray feels happy going into Wimbledon, despite losing his last three matches on grass in the build-up to the third Grand Slam of the year.
The British number one was shocked at Queen’s Club, when defending his AGEON Championship, losing in the opening match to Nicolas Mahut. Read more »