JAMIE Murray's hopes of reaching the last four at the ATP World Tour Finals will boil down to a showdown with the Bryan brothers, the world's top ranked doubles pair. The elder Murray sibling and his Australian partner John Peers, who have already announced they are to split as a partnership at the conclusion of this event, had got their campaign off to an excellent start with victory against Italian duo Simone Bolelli and Fabio Fognini back on Sunday but they suffered a setback here with a 3-6, 6-7 defeat to No 8 seeds Rohan Bopanna of India and Florin Mergea of Romania.
With Peers producing an awful opening service game, the Scottish/Australian duo were slow out of the blocks and it was a poor start from which they never quite recovered. While the 29-year-old from Dunblane, named yesterday in Britain's Davis Cup squad, had the crowd purring with a superb instinctive volley off a vicious ground stroke which restored parity from a break down at 4-4 in the second set [Thankfully it hit something. Or I might not be sitting here talking to you guys if it hadn't," he said], Bopanna and Mergea - a former World No 2 junior player in singles - held their nerve from 3-4 down in the second set tie-break to get over the line. At least, unlike knock-out play, Jamie still has another chance to progress while Bopanna and Mergea, victors against the Bryans on the opening day, have already qualified for the semi-finals.
"It will be an exciting match to play," said Jamie, of the meeting with the US partnership who narrowly overcame he and Dom Inglot on Davis Cup duty in March. "I guess we have to win if we want to try to stay in the competition. So it will be nice to get out there and play in front of a full crowd again. They [the Bryans] always bring a lot of energy to the court so we have to do the same if we want to try to win."
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