It was another below average performance for Andy Murray at the 2010 Cincinnati Masters. He needed to fight back from a set down to clinch a 4-6 6-3 7-6 (7-4) victory over Ernests Gulbis in the third round.

A tired looking Murray seemed to struggle with the hot conditions and Gulbis broke twice in the opening 5 games  to power into a 4-1 lead, Murray would retrieve one of the breaks but the Latvian held on to claim the first set.

Murray improved slightly in the second set, but he was aided in part by a drop in performance from Gulbis. The Scot claimed the second set and went a break up immediately at the start of third and all look  to be back to normal for Murray. Gulbis had other ideas and broke back in the next game and the rest of the set would go on serve with Gulbis looking the more threatening.

Experience seemed to play a big part in the result as Murray stayed composed in the breaker to race into a 6-1 lead before eventually taking the match on his 4th match point.

The 23-year-old British struggled in the heat and after the match said,

It was very warm and I was struggling to get control, Gulbis was hitting huge. He was comfortable when he was dictating points. I then began to make some first serves and then made sure he would have to play some great tennis to win the tie-break.

Murray will now face American wildcard Mardy Fish in the quarter finals – Fish has already beaten Murray twice this year, albeit when Murray was playing poorly. Fish took out Richard Gasquet 7-5 6-2 in his third round match.

In the only other completed 3rd round match, Novak Djokovic beat David Nalbandian in straight sets.

Wednesday’s second round matches produced no major shocks and the third round still has the worlds top 5 players featuring. The biggest casualty of the second round was 8th seed Fernando Verdasco who has not been at his best recently he lost to American Mardy Fish.

The top hald of the third round draw sees world number 1 and 2, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer still on course for semi final meeting, with Nadal facing Julien Benneteau and Federer taking on Philipp Kohlschreiber.

The bottom half of the draw has perhaps the best match ups of the third round with 2ned seed Novak Djokovic taking on David Nalbandian and 5th seed Robin Soderling taking on home favourite Andy Roddick.

Britain’s Andy Murray will face Ernests Gulbis for a place in the quarter finals.

Andy Murray needed three sets to reach the third round of this years Cincinnati masters. He beat France’s Jeremy Chardy 6-3 6-7(3-7) 6-2 and sets up a match against Ernest Gulbis tomorrow.

It didn’t look like going to three sets tonight after Murray took the first set comfortably continuing his fine form of last week. He was up a break of serve in the second before the Scots serve began to misfire which allowed Chardy to hit back and take the secon set to a tie break which deservly won with some fine forehand winners.

Murray regained some of his serving form and he was in turn able to take the advantage in third set after securing the crucial break of serve in the 4th game. Murray went on to serve out the match and even had a final break of serve in the last game.

Murray extends his amazing winning streak against French players to 23 wins in a row.

Murray is looking to regain his Cincinnati Masters this year. He won the event in 2008 beating Novak Djokovic in the final to claim his first ever masters title, though lost in the semi finals last year to Roger Federer.

If he is to win this year, he will first need to beat Ernest Gulbis in the next round, Murray currently holds 4-0 winning record of the young Latvian, who is currently ranked at a career high 27 in the world.

The first round of matches are now complete and the line up for the 2nd round draw is now complete. The top 8 seeds enter to the draw after 1st round byes and should all be in action today with the exception of 7th seed Tomas Berdych who has already made it through to the thrd round with win over Paul-Henri Mathieu yesterday.

After overcoming both Rafael and Roger Federer last week to win in Toronto, Andy Murray takes on France’s Jeremy Chardy – Murray currently holds an amazing winning record against French players, since losing in the first round to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga at the 2008 US Open, Murray has won 22 straight matches against French players.

Federer kicks off the defence of his title with a match against Denis Istomin whilst his possible semi final opponent Rafael Nadal begins his campaign against big serving American Taylor Dent.

5th seed Robin Soderling will take on Lleyton Hewitt in what looks to be the best match up of the second round.

The top players of the world will continue their preparations for the US Open in Cincinnati this week. The top 8 seeds have a bye in the first round and those first round matches will be completed today and tomorrow.

The top half of the draw looks the strongest with Nadal, Federer, Berdych and Davydenko all vying for a spot in the final, whilst last week’s Toronto winner looks favourite to reach the final with toughest match not coming to semi final likely against Dokovic or Soderling.

New world number two Andy Murray made tough work of his quarter final match against France’s Julien Benneteau as he continued on his way to the defence of his Cincinnati Masters title.

The sporting cliche that great players find a way to win even when they are playing badly could not be more evident in the first hour of Murray’s match today. The Scot played probably the worst set of tennis of his year so far as he dropped the first set 6-4 after being a break up.

He then found himself 2-0 down in the second set before an epic  53-shot rally saw Murray break back and go on to win 12 of the last 14 games eventually coming out 4-6 6-3 6-1.

The defending champion will now face world number 1 Roger Federer in Saturday’s semi-finals. After his win today Murray spoke to Sky Sports,

That unbelievable rally, 53 shots or something, that really changed the match for me, Physically he was struggling a little bit after that. I served terrible in the first set – six doubles. The ball was blowing all over the place. He obviously played well. It was tricky conditions. I was shanking a lot of balls at the start. I was hitting the ball really clean from the back of the court but leaving a lot of balls short so I ended up doing a lot of running, which wasn’t really the plan going into the match.

New dad Federer beat an injury struggling Lleyton Hewitt 6-3 6-4 and after his win he also spoke to Sky Sports,

I didn’t pay attention to his knee, I just thought he had not a very good day at the office. He made quite a few unusual mistakes for him. Maybe he was trying to go for more than he had to because of the knee, he was sort of obliged to.

Novak Djokovic beat Gilles Simon 6-4 7-5, with Rafael Nadal to face Tomas Berdych in the remaining quarter-final.

Andy Murray took a huge step forward in his young tennis career, answering his critics and squashing the scepticism of some negative British tennis press to record his first win at an elite masters event.

The British number one recorded an outstanding victory over the world number 3 Novak Djokovic in 2 very closely fought sets winning 7-6 (7-4) 7-6 (7-5) in two hours and 23 minutes.

It was only two months ago that many British tennis Journalists questioned whether Andy Murray could win at the top level - rather than see the potential and focus on his successes, they criticised his on court manner, his coaching choice and his autobiography.

Today he answered them in fine style. Two weeks ago Roger Federer was world number 1 and Andy Murray had never beaten Novak Djokovic and the young Serb had inflicted heavy defeats on Murray in their last 3 meetings.  Though times are a changing in the tennis world, roll on two weeks and Roger Federer’s reign at number 1 is coming to an end and Novak Djokovic has just lost twice to Andy Murray.

The scot started the match the better and looked the most likely to break first. He got carved out his first chance in game five, but was not able to convert and again in the 7th game forcing another chance, though again Djokovicclosed the door on Murray. Throughout this period Murray was holding his own serve with ease and would have been disappointed not secure the break. Not break of serve would mean a tie break was needed to separate the two - In many a similar match, the best player in the set doesn’t always win the set but this was not the case today. Murray remained ice cool, breaking immediately in the tie break and continuing is high level of service. Murray raced in a 5-1 lead at the changeover and soon wrapped up the set.

Djokovic, the current world number 3 and Australian Open champion rallied in the second set and managed to secure the first break of the match, to go up 2-1. But as we have seen Murray do on a few occasions in the last two weeks, the Scot broke back immediately. Andy turned up the heat in the eighth game securing a second break after some typical Murray scrambling that seen Djokovic eventually net an attempted smash. Murray was now serving for the match and the pressure started to toll, he played his first poor service game of the day that included two double faults and missed four match points before Djokovic broke back. On one of those match points though, a drop shot from Djokovic hit the net only to drop on Murray’s serve – the Scot missing out on victory by centimeters.

It should have been a shattering blow for the Briton at that point the bookmakers odds would have swung in favour of Djokovic, with his spirit crushed few would be surprised if Murray had went on to lose at this point.  As confidence flowed through Djokovic, Murray held his nerve and managed to force a second tie-break.

The tiebreak was as close as the whole match and the score stood at 4-4, the next point saw the Scot win an epic rally with an outstanding backhand winner. He then earned two match points after Djokovic double faulted – Murray needed both those points to win and on his sixth match point Murray secured a landmark win with a thumping volley.

The talk now will be is the big 3 now the big 4. At this very moment Andy Murray is comfortably in the top 2 players in the world. In the last two months Murray has only been beaten by one man, Rafael Nadal. Andy Murray has not suffered a loss to anyone other than the soon to be number 1 since the French Open and is now the only player other Rafael Nadal to win a main event since the Rome masters on the 5th of May.

It’s huge because to win these tournaments is tough nowadays, ‘ve played five days in these conditions and had eight or nine matches in the last couple of weeks. But I’ve put in the physical work and it’s paid off. I got very nervous and he was hitting the ball really big but I hung in well, It was tough for both of us and there were a lot of long rallies. Your legs really burn out there and they were some of the hardest conditions of the year. But I stayed calm throughout and didn’t waste any energy – especially when I went behind in a couple of matches.  In the past maybe I’d have let that get to me but now I’m playing top players on a regular basis and I’m better equipped.