Andy Murray

Jamie Murray teamed up with Sweden’s Simon Aspelin for the first time and made their partnership debut at the Western & Southern Financial Group Masters in Cincinnati.

The duo got of to a winning start with a 7-6(7-5) 6-2 win over Rohan Bopanna and James Cerretani. The completed the win quickly in 67 minutes and were decisively converted all 3 of their break point chances they created.

Simon Aspelin, a name that may be unfamiliar to many is actually one of the best doubles player on tour, he is currently ranked number 12th in the doubles ranking, 20 places ahead of Jamie Murray. His regular partner Austrian Julian Knowle retired hurt from the Rogers Cup last week and are currently the 10th ranked team in the doubles Race.

The British- Swedish duo next faces seventh-seeded Czech veterans Martin Damm and Pavel Vizner, who have been playing together on and off for many years, they actually played the Cincinnati masters together 11 years ago, though have not played the event together since.

Andy Murray’s semi final place in the Rogers Cup has helped him climb up the ATP race rankings from 9th last week to 6th this week. The ATP Race rankings are based on the year to dates performances, the major events (Grand Slams and Masters) count for the majority of the points.

Murray remained in position 9 in the main ATP rankings, but is now only 230 points behind 6th place Andy Roddick and Rafael Nadal is now just 300 points behind Federer.

Andy Murray has finally been drawn on the opposite half the draw from Rafael Nadal. In Andy’s last two tournaments, Wimbledon and last week’s Rogers cup he has lost to eventual winner Rafael Nadal in the quarter finals and semi-finals respectively. Even at the French Open he was drawn to meet Rafa in the 4th round had he beat Nicolas Almagro and at Queen’s was scheduled to meet Nadal in the semi’s had he not pulled out through injury.

The draw though is arguably no less tougher than last weeks Roger’s Cup where he beat the 3rd and 10th seed before losing to 2nd seed Nadal. Murray has been drawn in the current number 1, Roger Federer’s half and faces a possible route that includes Wimbledon foe Richard Gasquet in the third round,  Nikolay Davydenko in the Quarter’s before Federer in Semi’s.

Though Murray can take heart, that he has beaten all three of these players already this year and even holds a two wins to one loss record over Roger Federer, one of the few players on the ATP tour with a positive record over the Swiss ace.

Andy Murray suffered his fifth straight loss to Rafael Nadal in the semi finals of the Rogers Cup masters event in Toronto. Murray lost in straight sets, 7-6, 6-3 to the world number 2.

This match, unlike the Wimbledon semi final, was close and rather than Murray struggling to trying and keep up with Nadal, it was Nadal’s ability to move up an extra gear in the vital times of a set.

The first set was full off high quality tennis that needed a tie break to separate them and rather than Nadal winning the breaker, Murray faltered and lost the set. A recurring knee injury was a possible cause for the deterioration in Murray’s play in the tie break, umpire Cedric Mourier’s refused an injury time-out request by Murray in the 11th games after coming down hard on the joint on a serve, Murray had to wait till the end of the tie break, before receiving treatment. After the match Murray told reporters,

When I asked for the trainer he (Mourier) said: “Is it for your knee?”. He knew before I even told him that there was a problem there, because I had been limping for two games. He still didn’t let me have the trainer.

Nadal broke Murray for the first time in the match to take a 3-1 lead in the second set and the matched at that point looked over, but the last 3 months has seen a different Andy Murray and he fought back and regained the break of serve to level at 3-3 before Nadal shifted into that higher gear and powered home for the win.

Nadal is now closing in on number 1 spot and Murray thinks he will soon do it,

He’s definitely doing a lot of things better than he was in the past I think he’s moving better on hard courts, and I think he’s sort of changing the pace of the ball a little bit more and not playing so far behind the baseline like he did in the past. That’s why I think he’ll be number one in the world soon.

After the match Nadal had some kind words for Murray,

I played very well against Andy today because, in my opinion, he played one of his best matches against me

Later tonight Andy Murray will once again take on Rafael Nadal, the world Number 2 and perhaps soon to be world number 1.

After his win over Novak Djokovic last night Murray will be in confident mood, he had not beaten either Novak Djokovic or Rafael Nadal before coming into this tournament and now with his win against Djokovic has a chance to really silence his critics and break his duct against another player.

 Murray’s Odds of winning are much the same as they were against Djokovic last night and as usual the best odds you will find for either player is at betfair.

The history of these two players suggests that the bookmakers have it right, the two have met on 4 previous occasions and Nadal has won all 4 matches. Their last match of coarse was the demolition of Murray at Wimbledon just a few weeks ago. That match could either work for or against Murray, it could give him the focus to beat Nadal or give him the fear that he can’t beat Nadal, ever.

That match was on grass and today the play on hard courts, Andy’s favorite surface and Nadal’s least. Their first match together was an epic 5 setter in the 4th round of the Australian open in 2007. A 19 year old Murray twice lost a 1 set lead going down 6-7(3) 6-4 4-6 6-3 6-1. That match was played on hard courts.

From then they met twice on the regular ATP tour, in 2007 they met at the Madrid Masters, Murray lost a tight 2 set match 7-6(5) 6-4 and their other meeting was just 3 months ago at the  Hamburg Masters, this time the match took place on Clay and Murray never really had a chance of beating the clay court specialist. Murray would lose the match easily 6-3 6-2.

The Bookmakers got it wrong yesterday, lets hope the same thing happens today!