The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Murray edges Federer in a thriller

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Murray edges Federer in a thriller

Paes & Dlouhy crash out losing to Zimonjic & Nestor

— PHOTO: AFP

STEPPING IT UP: Andy Murray lost a tight first set but dug deep to top Roger Federer in the next two, to take the latter out of the tournament.

Shanghai: Britain’s Andy Murray ousted defending champion Roger Federer from the Masters Cup, rallying for a 4-6, 7-6(3), 7-5 victory on Friday. Federer appeared to be bothered in the third set by the sore back that forced him to withdraw from the Paris Masters two weeks ago.

The Swiss star received treatment three times Friday but refused to quit.

Federer saved seven match points while serving at 4-5 and held serve. Federer tried to force a tiebreaker after Murray had held for a 6-5 lead, but with the match clock reaching 3 hours, he committed three forehand errors while serving at 15-15. And Murray sealed it when Federer sent a forehand long.

“I would have liked to have won on the first match point but I played a couple of bad shots and he hit some aces and some big forehands,” Murray said. “I just had to find a way to come back after that. He was a little bit tired at the end and physically struggling and I had that at the back of my mind.”

“A win over Roger Federer means almost as much as winning the Masters Cup to me,” Murray said. “He’s the best player of all time. He’s still playing great. I know I’m going to be tired tomorrow, but this match meant a lot to me.”

Murray, who had his left hand iced during one of Federer’s timeouts, will play Russia’s Nikolay Davydenko in Saturday’s semifinals. Federer’s loss allowed France’s Gilles Simon to advance. He will meet Serbia’s Novak Djokovic.

World No. 9, Simon dismissed Radek Stepanek 6-1, 6-4 to win his final group encounter.

The 23-year-old, who won his ticket to the season finale when World No. 1 Rafael Nadal withdrew injured, finished with a 2-1 record in the round robin.

Simon is the first Frenchman in the knockout stage since Sebastien Grosjean in 2001.

Czech World No. 27 Stepanek came in at the last moment as a replacement for injured American Andy Roddick on Wednesday and, with nothing to play for, struggled to contain the dynamic young Frenchman. Simon claimed the first set when the Czech netted after just 25 minutes and encountered only marginally more resistance in the second.

“For me it was just an honour to be here, it was a great experience and a great motivation for next year,” said Stepanek, who will be 30 later this month. “Gilles played a great match ... I tried to play my best tennis here this week.”

Finishing at the bottom

Meanwhile, Leander Paes and Lukas Dlouhy ended their Masters Cup campaign without winning a single set, bowing out after a second successive straight-set defeat. The third seeded Indo-Czech pair lost their last round robin match of the Gold group 6-1, 6-4 to the second seeded pair of Canadian Daniel Nestor and Serbian Nenad Zimonjic.

Paes and Dlouhy finished fourth in their four-team group while Mahesh Bhupathi and his Bahamian partner Mark Knowles finished third in the red group.

Paes and Dlouhy had five chances to break but squandered all while their opponents succeeded in breaking them twice in the first set and once in the second to register their third win in a row.

The results: Singles: Red group: Gilles Simon bt Radek Stepanek 6-1, 6-4. Andy Murray bt Roger Federer 4-6, 7-6(3), 7-5. Doubles: Gold group: Daniel Nestor & Nenad Zimonjic bt Lukas Dlouhy & Leander Paes 6-1, 6-4; Mauricz Fyrstenberg & Marcin Matkowski bt Jonas Bjorkman & Kevin Ullyett 6-2, 1-6, 10-6. — Agencies

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