Match-point blues strike again as London beckons for Murray

Friday 2 November 2012

For a man with designs on the world No.1 ranking, Andy Murray's third-round defeat in the BNP Paribas Masters yesterday was a missed opportunity, but in the bigger scheme of things, it is unlikely to make too much difference.

Andy Murray let slip a match point for the third successive tournament. Picture: PA

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Simon Cambers

The Scot headed home on the Eurostar last night after being beaten by Polish giant Jerzy Janowicz and will now turn his attention to next week's season-ending Barclays ATP World Tour Finals. His priority is obvious.

The world No.3 looked like he could not get out of Bercy fast enough after he let slip a match point – for the third successive tournament – and lost 5-7, 7-6, 6-2 to the 21-year-old world No.69, who used his 6ft 8in frame to bang down 22 aces.Murray lost from a similar position against Milos Raonic of Croatia in the Japan Open and then against Novak Djokovic, when he held five match points, in the Shanghai Masters final.With Djokovic, who will regain the No.1 ranking on Monday, beaten in the previous round and Federer missing through injury, the opportunity was there for Murray to bank more ranking points and close the gap on the top two.But the Scot will not lose any sleep over the loss. His mind may have given up in the third set, there is nothing wrong with the way he is playing and he will go into London with the chance to get a little extra rest before trying to add the title to the ones he won at the Olympics and the US Open."A lot of the players will have had slightly different run-ins to the O2," Murray said yesterday. "Obviously me and Novak lost early this week; Roger didn't play, and then I think the rest of the guys are still in here."Maybe the guys that go deep here will have confidence from having a good tournament but may arrive a little bit later and might take a while to get used to the conditions. I'll have to wait and see. I'll definitely need to play a bit better than I did this week if I want to get some wins there."I don't know exactly what the reason was [for not taking match point]. I have to make sure I tighten that up next week if I get that opportunity in the matches and make sure I don't let it happen at the O2."When the ATP Tour was shortened by three weeks a couple of years ago, one of the downsides was the resultant removal of the week off between Paris and London.There is talk of moving Bercy to February from 2014 to avoid the kind of withdrawals (Federer) and early defeats (Djokovic and Murray) that have affected the event this year. To put it into context, it is the first time in exactly six years that none of the big four – Djokovic, Federer, Rafa Nadal and Murray – has reached the quarter-finals of a Masters 1000 and ends a run of 17 straight Masters 1000 titles they have won between them.The likeable Janowicz described his win as "the most unbelievable day in my life" but despite the Pole's performance, Murray should still have won.After taking the first set thanks to one break in the 11th game, he looked to have done enough when he slammed back a 230 kph serve with an enormous forehand return winner to break for 4-3. But at 5-4, 40-30 he was a little lazy on a forehand and, after dropping serve, he was outplayed in the tiebreak and after being broken again in the third game of the decider, he faded away.An undefeated champion in London earns 1500 ranking points and that, together with the prestige of the title, is sure to get Murray fully focused once more and today he will be reunited with his coach, Ivan Lendl, having last seen him just a few hours after his US Open triumph in September.Juan Martin Del Potro was another big name to fall yesterday, going out to Michael Llodra of France, while the Wimbledon doubles champion Jonny Marray and Australia's Paul Hanley upset the world's No.1 pair, Bob and Mike Bryan, in a deciding champions tiebreak to reach the quarter-finals.

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Match-point blues strike again as London beckons for Murray

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