It will be no fairy tale Wimbledon win for Andy Murray this year Gutted he has just been beaten in 4 very close sets sets 6-4 4-6 7-6 7-6.

Andy Murray wil now look to the 2009 US Open as the Scot looks to claim his first grand slam championship and end the British drought.

All credit must go to Andy Roddick, he proved all his doubters that he is indeed still one of the worlds best and looks like he surely is in the form of his life.

Andy Murray successfully defended his Qatar Open title 6-4 6-2 against big serving American Andy Roddick in Doha.

Murray was in sublime form and gets the Scot of to a 100% record for 2009 adding to his 3 exhibition wins last in Abu Dhabi.

There had been some fears before the game that Murray would have to pull out of the match because of the back problem that seen Murray need treatment in his semi-final win against Roger Federer.

Murray, who is still only 21 looked focused from the start and broke Roddick to love in the fifth game to go 3-2 which allowed him to take control of the match, he served out the set 6-4 with an impressive show on first serves, perhaps Murray’s most improved shot over the last year. Murray took control of the second as he did in the first with and early break, Roddick, who had only beaten Murray twice in their seven meetings before this game, struggled to hold serve and he was broken a second time by Murray and the Scot went on to win the set easily 6-2.

After the win, Murray said,

What excites me is that I don’t think I’m close to my best tennis, I still think I can play better and improve things. As in the last two sets against Federer I served very well. In one of the games Andy had a chance to break me, but when I got behind I served very well. On the big points I didn’t give him too many chances to hit winners and when that happens it makes life easier. The semi-final and final matches were very good against two top players so I am very pleased. It is great to start the season with a title.

Andy Murray has been given a bye in the first round of the Rogers Cup after gaining the 8th seed position in the masters tournament and in the second round will face Qualifier.

Tomorrow will see the start of the first round matches, the Murray and the other top seeds wont start their campaigns till Tuesday or Wednesday. Looking ahead to later in the week, their a few potential tantalising matches. In the top half, Roger Federer could meet Andy Roddick in the quarter finals. Roddick has only ever beat Federer on 2 out 17 matches between the two, though one of those wins was their last meeting earlier this year.

The bottom half which includes Andy Murray – The Scot could meet Marat Safin in the third round, Novak Djokovic in the quarters and Rafael Nadal in the semi’s. 

Andy Murray will again join the top tennis players of the world next week at the next ATP tour masters event, the Rogers Cup, played at the Rexall Centre at York University in Toronto.

The Rogers cup is Celebrating its 127th anniversary, it is the third oldest tournament behind only Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. Forty four of the top 44 players on the ATP Tour have been confirmed for the Masters Series Canadian event. There will be 4 former Rogers Cup champions in the field including defending Champion Novak Djokovic, two time champion Roger Federer (2006, 2004), 2005 champion Rafael Nadal and 2003 champion Andy Roddick.

The Toronto tournament will be the first tournament played by many of the top players after Wimbledon, this is the case of all the current above defending champions, world number 4 Nikolay Davydenko and world number 9 Andy Murray.

Murray pulled out of last week’s Indianapolis Tennis Championships to prepare better for the upcoming weeks includes 2 master events, the olympics and the US Open.

Last year this was the Scot’s first comeback tournament after his long lay off because of a wrist injury sustained 4 months earlier. He only managed one win against American Robby Generpri, before losing to Italy’s Fabio Fognini, who was a lowly ranked 139 qualifier.

In 2006 though Murray made it to the semi finals of tournament, where he dispatched 4 players before losing to his this years Wimbledon 4th round opponent Richard Gasquet. Among the four players he beat on his way to the semi finals, was 2 seeds David Ferrer and Jarkko Nieminen, former world number 1 Carlos Moya and Britains own Tiger Tim Henman. It was the second time Henmanand Murray had met on the tour an the first victory for Murray, they would meet twice again in 2006, Murray winning both matches.

Although the tournament is called the Roger’s Cup – it does not currently belong to Roger. Novak Djokovic beat Roger Federer in epic final last year, which seen the young Serb record his first victory against the world number 1 after losing in the last 4 matches. It was perhaps here at this tournament last year that we did in fact see the end of Federer’s dominance. The two would meet a few weeks later in the US Open final and although Federer won that match, he would lose the next between the two at the Australian open.

Rafael Nadal will continue his quest for the world number 1 position, the Spaniard will again take to his least favorite surface, hard courts - But he can take heart that he has tasted victory here in Toronto, he beat Andre Agassi in the final in 2005 and only lost to Djokovic in the semi’s last year.

Andy Murray, Nikolay Davydenko, Andy Roddick and James Blake will be amongst the players looking to make a dent in the Federer / Nadal / Djokovic dominance of the 2008 so far.

Today Andy Murray may have delivered on his expectations, but the same could not be said for many of the other seeds on a day of some major upsets.

Andy Roddick
The biggest upset on the men’s side was the departure of the two time finalist at SW19, Andy Roddick. The big serving American was beaten by an inspired Janko Tipsarevic in 4 sets 7-6 (7-5) 5-7 4-6 6-7 (4-7). Since Novak Djokovic’s departure yesterday, Tipsarevic is now the highest ranked Serb in the men’s draw and he is showing the world that there is more than Djokovic to Men’s Serbian tennis. After the match, Tipsarevic said,

This means the world to me, I’m just glad that I won and Serbia will have more representatives in the men’s singles draw

At last week’s Bootle’s event, Andy Murray narrowly beat Tipsarevic in an exhibition match played on grass. Tipsarevic will now play Dmitry Tursunov.

Rafael Nadal
Rafael Nadal needed work hard to overcome the challange of Latvian teenager Ernest Gulbis. At Queens two weeks ago, Gulbis narrowly lost Andy Murray in three sets in the match that Murray picked up his thumb injury. Nadal needed to come back from a set down to beat the impressive Gulbis 5-7 6-2 7-6 (7-2) 6-3, Gulbis showing signs that he will soon be a top 20 player, with a little more consistency and fitness.

The Brits
Unfortunately the only British winner today was Andy Murray. British qualifier Chris Eaton was defeated in straight sets by Dmitry Tursunov 7-6 (7-2), 6-2, 6-4 in one hour 56 minutes. The big serving Brit made a good fist of things in the first set and took it to a tie breaker, but Tursunov was just on a slightly higher level than Eaton and was outplayed much of the rest of the set. In the Ladies side, defending Wimbledon champion Venus Williams was pushed hard by the British number one Anne Keothavong, but after a spirited first 11 games Keothavong eventually was overturned by Williams 7-5 6-2.

Andy Murray is now the only Brit left in either singles draws.

Other upsets
9th seeded American James Blake continued his rather poor Wimbledon record continue when he stumbeled out 3-6 7-6 (10-8) 6-4 4-6 4-6 to German Rainer Schuettler. Blake has failed to make it past the third round In six appearances at the All England Club.