Andy Murray made a successful return to the ATP tour after 3 weeks off, the last time the Scot hit a tennis ball in a competitive match was his defeat in the final of the Australian Open.

Murray playing in the opening day of the Dubai Tennis Championships eased by his first round opponent Russia’s Igor Kunitsyn – Murray winning the match 6-2 6-3.

The world number 4 will now take on either Andreas Seppi or Janko Tipsarevic in the second round clash.

With a straight sets victory to 2 and 3, you would normally expect a 1 hour match, but the matched lasted closer to two hours mainly down to the colossal 34-point second game  that lasted nearly half an hour before Murray finally won it on his 9th break point, a total of 14 deuces in the game. If you were wondering you can win a set in little as 24 points (6 love games) or even win a  set 6-2 in less than 34 points. After that break of serve Murray did indeed go on to win the set 6-2. That epic game which lasted 24 minutes and 30 seconds,  is believed to be one of the longest games in the Open Era.

His Russian opponent, Igor Kunitsyn, ranked 111th in the world, faught back from dropping that opening set by breaking in the opening game of the second, but in typical Murray style the Scot immeadiatly broke back, after that the match was in little doubt as Murray went to secure another break and take the second set 6-2.

The only negative aspect of the match for Murray was that he appeared to have one or two physical issues, after his win Murray said

My ankle was sore at the start of the match and I was really out of breath early on. I have not practised that much, or trained that much and there were a lot of long rallies….You don’t think that at 1-0 it could make a huge difference to the match, but I think it did. I’ve never played a game like that before.

Second seed (but really first seed after the withdrawal of Roger Federer through illness) Novak Djokovic also made it through to the second round beating Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-4 6-4.

With the withdrawal of the Four-time former champion Roger Federer from the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships, Novak Djokovic, the world number 2 is the top seed with world number 4 Andy Murray second seed. Though Spaniard Tommy Robredo takes Federer place at the top of the draw because it had already been drawn before the Swiss player pulled out.

Federer was forced to withdraw from the event due to a lung infection and world number 3 Rafael Nadal is still taking time out to fully recover from his several knee injuries.

In the bottom half of the draw Djokovic looks to have a clear run through to the quarters were he would likely face Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, though the French man may have tough second round match against tough Croatian Ivan Ljubicic. Nikolay Davydenko would likely meet the winner if that quarter final in the bottom half semi final.

In the top half of the draw, the top quarter is lacking it’s top sees and should see 6th seed Marin Cilic emerge into the semi finals to face probably Andy Murray in a repeat of the 2010 Australian open semi final.

Andy Murray turned the Dubai centre court blue today as he was out classed by Russian 5th seed Nikolay Davydenko. Murray was beaten in straight sets 7-5, 6-4 after he led 3-0 in the second set.

I would like to say that I meant that Murray bled blue “Scottish” blood in his efforts today, unfortunately it was his foul language that let the British number 1 down.

It was a return to old form for Murray, shoulders slumped, screaming out loud at every point that didn’t go his way, the majority of those screams a different profanity. The Centre court at Dubai was full with young kids but it didn’t stop Murray – The calmness we seen from him against Federer just evaporated as soon as he stepped on court today. I would describe him as a “stroppy teenager” - but he’s not a teenager any more, we should have seen the end of these performances last year. The umpire today did not issue any code violations against Murray, but for his own good I think he needs to start getting more of these and I personally would like to see the umpire’s get tough on Murray.

Some people will claim that it shows his desire to win, and it’s necessary to vent his frustrations. Too many times though have I watched Murray act like this on court and rarely does he come out the victor. There will be times on court when a vent of anger is needed, but not after every point, rather than showing maturity and working out what’s going wrong his first reaction was a scream or a gesture smash his racket after every lost point.

When he is acting like this it always appears that affects his concentration and his focus switches to the lines, the umpire, his racket, cameraman, talking to himself rather than focusing on his opponent.

Murray had won the last 3 meetings between these two, so should have been well placed to make it 4, but it was not to be. His counter punching style played into Davydenko’s hands and after a pretty long and dull first set Davydenko broke in the 11th game and then serving out to take it 7-5.

It looked like Murray had forgotten how to hit an attacking shot in the first set. But for a brief bottom at the start of second he stepped up the court and began firing winners, at one point winning 9 points in a row, which included the break of Davydenko’s serve. So what happen next? Murray lost it, back to defensive style, waiting for  to make mistakes. In the end these were few and far between and Davydenko went onto win the next 5 games whilst Murray mentally crumbled on the other side. The game at 3-2 in the second was the crucial turning factor here, Murray had 2 breaks points and there was 4 deuces, Davydenko held on to take the game. He never looked back form then and the fight seemed to drain from Murray after that.

A performance like this will ensure that Murray will remain on the fringes of the top 10, still more work for to do for the man from Dunblane, though on today’s evidence, still much a boy. We are all quick to praise Murray when he plays well and beats Federer or even loses but his still given it his all. Today he lost, played badly, did not give it is all and acted like a petulant child, so today he has to get the criticism that he deserves.

Andy Murray will face Russian 5th seed Nikolay Davydenko in the quarter finals of the of the Barclays Dubai tennis championships.

The Match will be second on court tomorrow and should begin around 4pm local time (12pm GMT).

These two have met on 5 previous occassions in total and Murray has been the winner in the last 3 of them, with Davydenko winning the first two.The most recent of matches was in the semi finals of this year’s Doha open which Murray went on to win. That day Murray won comfortably in straight sets.

The two matches previous to that were in 2007, Murray again the victor in straight sets in both matches. We have to go back to the 2006 US open where Davydenko beat a young up and coming Murray in 4 sets.

The top 5 remaining seeds all survived the second round of the Dubai tennis championships to move into the quarter finals. With only David Ferrer the only one to drop a set.

They will also be joined there with the unseeded players – Andy Murray, Feliciano Lopez and Igor Andreev, who all won today.

Roger Federer remains the only member of the worlds top 6 ranked players to be eliminated so far and that was at the hands of our own Andy Murray.

Andy Murray will face Russian 5th seed Nikolay Davydenko who was an easy winner earlier today dropping only 5 games on his way to 6-1 6-4 victory.

David Ferrer, the 4th seed will face Feliciano Lopez in all Spanish affair which will be the first match on centre court tomorrow. Lopez is ranked 41 in the world and has already put out the 8th seed Tomas Berdych today and will be looking for another seeds scalp.

The best match up of the round will be the only all seeded affair between Rafael Nadal and Andy Roddick which will be the first game on court in the Evening session. These two surprisingly have only met once in the last 3 years in which Nadal won in the semi’s at the Masters Series in Indian Wells 2007.

The last match will be between the Russian Igor Andreev, currently ranked 34 in the world and third seed Novak Djokovic. The Australian open winner looks odds on favorite to win this match, he looks like he is in fine form and has won both previous matches against Andreev.

Andy Murray beat Spaniard Verdasco in three sets today to move into the quarter finals of the Dubai Tennis Championship where he will now face Russian Davydenko. Murray eventually winning 6-3, 3-6, 7-6(5) after tough contest where he looked second best for much of the game.

The first set went with the form book, Murray winning without producing anywhere near his best tennis. He broke in the sixth game of set after he had saved a break point in his previous service game. He went on to save a few more break points in the set and eventually winning out 6-3 in 39 minutes.

A refreshed Verdasco entered the second set and he raced to 3-0 lead without much defence from Murray. Murray’s game of waiting for a mistakes from his opponent rather than being the aggressor was not working as Verdasco hit a serious of forehand winners. Things looked up for Murray when he broke back in the seventh game to make 3-4 to Verdasco, but the Scot was not on top of his game and was broke again immediately in the next game. Verdasco then went on to serve out the second set to even iy up at 1 set a piece.

Third set started with Verdasco looking the more likely to win, but Murray began to play himself into some sort of form and after holding his serve to love in the 5th game he then turned up the heat by breaking in the 6th game to take a 4-2 lead, though just as Murray had done to Verdasco in the second set, the Spaniard broke back straight away to even things up at 4-4.

Murray then faced a real test of his bottle when at 5-5 he offered a break point and virual match to the Spaniard. He proved his new mental toughness though and manged to hold to the set winning the next three points to take a 6-5 lead. In the final game before the tie break with Verdasco 40-0 up, Murray found some returns to pull it back to deuce and only two points away from winning. Verdasco proved he was just as tough holding on and taking it to a tie break.

Murray Races to a 3-0 lead in the breaker with two mini breaks, Verdasco pulls one back on the Murray serve to make it 4-1, before again giving it one back to Murray on his next two serves. Making it 5-2 with Murray serving. The first of those serves Murray puts away bringing up 4 set points at 6-3. Verdasco amazingly saves three of them, 1 on the Murray serve. Then at 6-5 with Murray serving a tense 34 stroke rally eventually sees Verdasco produce a final unforced error for Murray to make it 3 wins to love against the world number 30, Fernando Verdasco.

Andy Murray will take on Fernando Verdasco tomorrow in the second round match of the Barclays Dubai tennis championships. Fernando Verdasco is currently ranked 30th in the world and put out Rainer Schuettler (GER) in the previos round 7-6(7) 4-6 6-1. The match will be the first on the centre court at 2pm, (10am GMT).

These two have met on twice previously on the Main ATP, with Murray coming out the victor on both occasions. The matches were both played out last year, the first was in the second round of the Australian Open were Murray won in straight sets 7-6(4) 7-5 6-4. The second came indoors on carpet at the final of the St. Petersburg Open, where Murray again won comfortably in straight sets 6-2 6-3.

Verdasco has beaten Murray though, back in 2003 in Spain on the Challengers and Futures tour, a 19 year old Verdasco beat 15 year old Murray 6-1 6-3.