Colin Fleming and Ken Skupski won their first ATP Tour doubles title at the Open de Moselle in Metz, France, on Sunday. It was just the duos first ever direct entry into an top ATP event and only their 4th event at the top ATP Level after three wildcards early in the year at the 3 British grass court events (Queens, Nottingham and Wimbledon).

The duo beat one of the top doubles teams, the French pairing of Arnaud Clement and Michael Llodra on a champions tie-break 10-5 in the final after the first two sets were shared 2-6 6-4. The victory all the more impressive as the Frenchmen were on home soil.

The victory pushes Scotland’s Fleming up to 79 in the doubles world rankings, while England’s Skupski goes to 76.

Fleming and Skupski were not used in Britain’s Davis Cup defeat by Poland, though strong consideration to use them needs to be seriously considered, these twp guys know how to win doubles matcher – And that is perhaps the most important point – The usual davis cup doubles players Ross Hutchins or previously Jamie Murray all play with a partner from another country usually.

After winning the event Fleming, from Linlithgow, near Edinburgh in Scotland said

This is our first ATP title and no-one can ever take that away from us, But in terms of the long-term plan, the ranking points are so important because it means we’re closer to playing ATP-level events all the time, which is where we want to be. We were just pleased to get into the main draw because we’ve spent weeks going to ATP event after ATP event and being bottom of the list of entrants and not getting in. We kept working hard though and kept patient and eventually it happened for us. We got off to a rough start in the final, through a combination of them playing really well and us being a little bit overawed. We’d played all our matches on the second court and the final was on the stadium court and it was a very different atmosphere, it was very noisy. We had a lot of tough matches this week – we won our second round 11-9 in the tiebreaker and we could easily have lost that one, so to win the title is amazing.”

Skupski, from Liverpool, added:

This is our first direct acceptance at ATP World Tour level. In the three that we’ve played we’ve beaten the Bryan brothers and Melo-Sa, who are top 20. So we always knew that we were capable of beating top guys. These guys (Clement-Llodra) are very good and they outplayed us from the start but we kept plugging away and we found a way to get back into it and then we felt we had a chance. We tried to influence the Match tie-break early and we were fortunate to do so. We feel like we’ve got a good chance to break into the top 50 now.

Flemming and Skupski have been used to winning recently, over the last 12 months they have won 4 challenger events been in the final of a further 5, won 6 futures (level below challenger) events and even had time to beat the world number 1 doubles team the Bryan Brothers in their maiden ATP event at Queens – Not bad 12 months and with their ranking no good enough for entry direct into ATP events watch out for Team Flemski in 2010.

Update : Flemski have gained direct entry into the St Petersburg Open which starts on the 25th October 2009.

Great Britain suffered the humiliation of being relegated to Group Two of Euro-Africa zone after the failed to defeat Poland in Liverpool.

The result is yet more fuel for the LTA haters – whilst I agree that LTA are truly awful, on this occasion so much of the blame must go on John Lloyd – he could even pick a winning team if he was running the Spanish team and they were playing on Clay.

First off – He should have never have let Andy Murray play doubles – he let Murray decide if he was fit enough to play and like all sportsmen they are too proud to say no. Secondly when will they pick a doubles team to play rather than a one doubles specialist – Fleming and Skupski have been a revelation this year and with the event in Skupski’s home town it would have made for an excellent debut.

The other singles player – far too early to throw 19 year old Dan Evans in, I know he was not first choice, but he was still way out of his depth – I would have even more happy with Bogdanavic playing second singles player. And why o why do they schedule our number 2 as the second player, after losing the doubles, we had no hope winning that 5th match, too much pressure for a 19 year old Davis cup debutant – especially when they are pampered British players who don’t quite have that “fire in their bellies” to dig deep to pull out a win.

James Ward, British no.2 would have played if he had been fit – but even still it may just be a little early for him – history tells us that young British players don’t do well in Davis cup when they are flung in and win is needed.

Britain next year will have to first win their 2nd division match – if they do that they will then have the chance in a playoff to win in entry into division 1 in 2011. If that goes successfully they will need to repeat this feat to gain entry into the world group in 2012. At the moment winning a 2nd division match looks tough!

Roger Federer’s five-year unbeaten reign at the US Open came to a dramatic five sets conclusion Argentina’s Juan Martin del Potro claimed his first Grand Slam title.

Del Potro twice fought back from a set down to win 3-6 7-6 (7-5) 4-6 7-6 (7-4) 6-2. and also becoming the first man other than Rafael Nadal to beat Federer in the final of a Grand Slam tournament.

Del Potro’s performance all the more impressive as this the 20-year olds maiden Grand Slam final and first victory over Roger Federer – Now that is pulling out a performance when it really matters. After winning the 2009 US Open an emotional Del Potro said

I had two dreams this week, One was to win the US Open and the other one is to be like Roger. One is done, but I need to improve a lot to be like you, You fought until the final point. You are a great champion. I’m very happy to be here with this crown, with these people, on this court. This will be in my mind forever.

A slightly less emotional Federer said

I would like to congratulate Juan Martin on an unbelievable tournament. I had a great one but he was the best. I would have never believed I could win five in a row here. It has been an amazing run for me. I was two points from the match today. That’s the way it goes sometimes. But I’ve had an unbelievable run this year. Being in all major finals and winning two of those. Sure, I would have loved to win those two as well. But the year has been amazing already. Got married and had kids, don’t know how much more I want.

As for Andy Murray – this will go down as surely his most disappointing grand slam performance yet, the wrist injury may yet explain is poor showing but the way he went out as put a huge dent in his grand slam credibility.

It was the strangest of matches and the type of performance that we rarely if ever see from Andy Murray as the Scot was comprehensivly beaten 7-5 6-2 6-2 in the 4th round of the US Open by Marin Cilic.

Murray paid the price for a truly awfull performance that may or  may not have been hampered by an injured wrist, though he refused to blame the injury afterwards, he played with a bandage on his wrist but it did not appear to hinder hi, though Murray rarely talks publically about his weeknesses.

Murray, seeded second in this years event, did have two set points for the first set and if he had won one of them, the match could have taken a different direction, the second and third were simply “mince” though, Murray made mistake after mistakes to let the 16th seed to extend his lead.

Cilic will now play Juan Martin Del Potro in the quarter-finals, which may well be a blessing in disguise for Murray – as Del Potro would have skelped Murray if the Scot played like the way he played today – As these two will in the future be world 1 and 2, it may well be the only positive Murray can take from the match.

Not surprisingly Murray  was disappointed with defeat

Regardless of my wrist, I lost the match, I returned poorly. He served well and that was really the difference. I just couldn’t get myself into enough return games to get myself back into the match, A lot of times when I lose I get asked ‘why did you look flat?’ but it is not always the case – today I couldn’t get myself into games and he was dominating points so there wasn’t much I could do about it.

Cilic hit 35 winners compared to just 13 by Murray, who failed to convert any of seven break points. Though don’t beleive the “superb Cilic” headlines you may read, Cilic played well, well enough to beat Andy Murray – But Murray was poor today, very poor and despite what he may claim about his wrist, phychologically or physically it hurt him today – he threw away the second and thrid set and that is something we rarely see Murray do.

The usual Murray doubters will again surface claiming the Scot can’t win a grand slam, too passive, not aggressive enough and all that jazz – He’ll now have to wait till 2010 to prove them wrong.