Andy Murray

After all the effort to make it Beijing, Andy Murray will leave with just one double’s win a two humbling defeats.

Sadly, Andy and Jamie were knocked out of doubles competition at the Beijing Olympics a thumping 1-6 3-6 loss to experienced French pair, Arnaud Clement and Michael Llodra.

Arnaud Clement and Michael Llodra are one of the few pairs who have played many times before, and with great success, but recent form in the last 6 months has not been great and hopes were high for the British pair that they could make it through this tough match.

The match was played out on court 4 of the Olympic tennis centre and few people will have seen the Murray’s make their exit.

Andy Murray has received much unwarranted criticism for his first round from some idiots in the media and we will no doubt see this increase in the next few days. His form has been rubbish since being here in Beijing, but he was here and to question his commitment to the Olympics or that his motivations is just money is simply ludicrous.

Murray pulled out of the Indianapolis tennis event 3 weeks ago to be better prepared for the Olympics. Indianapolisis part of 8 tournaments called the US Open Series that are played in the lead up to the US open. Each week Points are gained in each of these events and the winner at the end of the US Open takes home a Bonus from a $1million prize pool. Further to pulling out of Indianapolis, he has sacrificed playing in the US Open series events last week, this week and next week.

Prior to leaving for the Olympics Andy Murray was joint top of the leaderboard along side Rafael Nadal and so to question money has his motivations is just simply incorrect and and s fools point of view.

Though he did play absolute mince this week - long way short of his 6th in the world ranking. This however does not make him a bad person or only in it for money - It just means that he played mince this week!

Andy and Jamie Murray will continue their hunt for a Gold medal for Britain in the tennis doubles event in Beijing against French pairing Arnaud Clement and Michael Llodra.

The match will be third on number 4 court, which starts play at 4pm (9am UK time), Beijing time, which means the Murray’s will likely take to court arround 8pm (1pm UK time). Court 4 is not one of the main courts and may not have TV coverage.

Clement and Llorda are the 2007 Wimbledon doubles champion, though Jamie has recorded a victory against the pair this year in Indian wells with his regular partner Max Mirnyi.

Andy Murray also has a great record against another French team in doubles he has beaten the French duo Richard Gasquet and Nicolas Mahut twice this year, first at Queens and just two weeks ago in the Rogers Cup.

Since their win at Wimbledon in 2007 the French team have had mixed form, they reached the final of the Australian open this year and since then have not been able to recapture the winning formula, in the last 5 events they have played together they have bean beaten in the first round. However the duo did managed to overcome the third best doubles team in the world, Israelis Erlich / Ram, who were amongst the favorites having been one of the few regular double teams.

It’s a little tough to get odds from all the bookmakers on this one as not all the sites are offering and if they are, they don’t always make it easy to find. Currently at Betafir the odds are slightly in favour of a French win, though only by the smallest of margins. 

The Olympics started with a washout on day for 1 Andy Murray and after day 2 Andy Murray was nearly heading home.

Murray kicked of his Olympic life with a disappointingly pathetic loss to Lu Yen-Hsun in his opening singles match 7-6 (7-5) 6-4. Pathetic may be being harsh, but the Scot lost the first set from a seemingly winning position, missing out in numerous set points before finally handing the set to his much lowered ranked opponent on a double fault.

The second set went much the same and Murray threw away yet another lead in the second after fighting into 4-2 lead.

Don’t read any match report and believe that Lu Yen-Hsun played well above his 77th ranking - Andy Murray lost this match rather than Yen-Hsun winning it. At the same time don’t believe the reports about Murray not trying as hard because this was Olympics - He played badly yes - When Roger Federer loses in the third round of Cincinati, do the press accuse Federer of not trying. No that is a uniquely British Journalist trait of tearing down our sports stars on a personal level after losing.

And Andy Murray would prove his commitment to the Olympics and redeem himself in the doubles with a really hard fought win with his brother Jamie.

The brothers took to the court late on Monday evening after a few hours rest for Andy. The dup got of to the worst possible start and dropped the first set and Andy Murray’s much hyped Olympics was going down the toilet.

Somehow though Jamie and Andy managed to pull things together and they recovered to win the second set, it was perhaps a lot more to do with poor serving of 277th ranked Niemeyer who simply could not hold his serve. This carried on into the final set and Jamie Murray found himself serving for the set, but the older of the Murray Brothers could not finish off the match and it needed yet another break of Niemeyer serve to clinch the win. After the match Andy Murray was content with his doubles win, 

I came here to win an Olympic medal and realistically I was only ever going to win one in either singles or doubles, I’d like success but if I had to pick one it would be to win with my brother. To win an Olympic medal with my brother would be something special. I don’t want to make excuses - Lu just played better than me. I had my chances and I didn’t take them.

Jamie Murray admitted that the shock defeat in the singles had affected them in their match, 

It was a tough situation and Andy losing in the singles was a bit of a shock for us. He was a bit flat and some of that translated to me. That happens sometimes, Andy came here with high hopes of doing well in the singles and I guess he needed a bit of encouragement. It was a tough day for him but we got through and that’s the main thing.

Daniel Nestor is the worlds number 1 doubles player, so this was no easy match for the British pair and coming through with a win after dropping the first set and the massive disappointment of the singles result for Andy only a few hours earlier speaks volume for the fighting desire of the Murray Brothers. 

The draw does not get any easier for the British Brothers, they will play either French pair Clement / Llorda or Israelies Erlich / Ram - The score in that match is currently 6-4 5-4 in favour of the French pair. Erlich and Ram are the third ranked team in the doubles world and Clement and Llorda are the current Wimbledon champions.

Brothers Andy and Jamie Murray will meet Canadian team Daniel Nestor and Frederic Niemeyer in the first round of the Olympics doubles tennis. This will be a tough opener as Daniel Nestor is currently the world’s top doubles player, though most of his success has been with regular partner Serb Nenad Zimonjic, who will play with fellow Serb Novak Djokovic.

The brothers played together often as youngsters and teamed up in Canada two weeks ago in preparation for the Olympic games. They managed a good win against French pairing Richard Gasquet and Nicolas Mahut before losing to Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimonjic, who went on to win the event.

Their first round match was due to take place on the 10th around 7pm local time (11am UK time), though rain has forced the match to be delayed and will now be played Monday 11th at approx 9pm local time (1pm UK time)

 How the seedings were calculated?

The seedings were established by taking the best ranking of either the players ATP Singles or ATP Double ranking andthen averaging these each team. For example Serb second seeds Novak Djokovic & Nenad Zimonjic have an average ranking of 3.5 after taking Djokovic’s ATP rank 3 for singles and Zimonjic’s ATP Rank 4 for Doubles. 

This method has thrown up a few surprise seedings, the Swiss team and 2 Spanish teams have no established doubles player, yet are seeded 4th, 5th and 6th respectively.

The overwhelming favorites the Bryan bothers are ranked number 1 and their toughest challenge could come from other regular team Jonathan Erlich & Andy Ram.

British team Andy Murray and Jamie Murray just miss out on an seed, falling in at 10th, with Andy’s 6th in singles and Jamie’s 29th in doubles and although their opponents has the worlds number 1 doubles player, that team is not seed because other player Niemeyer has a best rank of 277 in singles 

Swede Simon Aspelin and Brit Jamie Murray won their second match in two days and secured their spot in the quarterfinals at the Western & Southern Financial Group Masters in Cincinnati.

They beat the number 7 seeds Martin Damm and Pavel Vizner 6-3, 7-6(7-5) in 90 minutes last night.

Aspelin and Jamie are making their first appearance as a duo this week, and are now 2 for 2 as a partnership after the defeated Rohan Bopanna and James Cerretani in their first round match on Monday.

Up next for the pair will either be Robert Lindstedt and Jarkko Nieminen or Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram, who will play their second round match tomorrow. The Duo’s quarter final will likely take place on Thursday.