Andy Murray

Jamie Murray teamed up with Sweden’s Simon Aspelin for the first time and made their partnership debut at the Western & Southern Financial Group Masters in Cincinnati.

The duo got of to a winning start with a 7-6(7-5) 6-2 win over Rohan Bopanna and James Cerretani. The completed the win quickly in 67 minutes and were decisively converted all 3 of their break point chances they created.

Simon Aspelin, a name that may be unfamiliar to many is actually one of the best doubles player on tour, he is currently ranked number 12th in the doubles ranking, 20 places ahead of Jamie Murray. His regular partner Austrian Julian Knowle retired hurt from the Rogers Cup last week and are currently the 10th ranked team in the doubles Race.

The British- Swedish duo next faces seventh-seeded Czech veterans Martin Damm and Pavel Vizner, who have been playing together on and off for many years, they actually played the Cincinnati masters together 11 years ago, though have not played the event together since.

Britain’s Olympic chances of a medal in the doubles event took a boost this evening (early morning in the UK) as Jamie and Andy Murray overcame a rusty start to win their opening match at the Toronto Masters.

The Scottish duo were playing the French pairing of Richard Gasquet and Nicolas Mahut and dispatched them in just over an hour, 7-6 (7-4) 6-2.

The brothers got off to the worst possible start losing their serve in the opening game, but the French team could not close out the set and in a repeat of that third set at wimbledon, the Murray’s broke back at 5-4 and went on to win the tie-break.

The second set was much easier affair for Andy and Jamie, they secured two early breaks to go up 5-1. The breaks coming from the only two break oportunities they had in the second set. From there they  wrapped up the set in quick time. After the match Jamie said,

It was a great match, really good fun to play in. There were plenty of good rallies, especially in the tie-break. We managed to step things up in the second set, and got ourselves a couple of quick breaks, which really helped. Have to say thanks to the British fans who came out to watch, there were lots of them!

Their next match should be a lot tougher as they face one of the doubles specialist teams, second seeds Daniel Nestor of Canada and Serbia’s Nenad Zimonjic in the next round. A team that will not need to worry about at next months Olympics.

Andy Murray and brother Jamie Murray will team up together at the Roger’s cup in Toronto this week as they begin their preparation for their Olympic doubles meeting in Beijing next month.

The Scottish duo will take to the court today later on this afternoon, 4pm Eastern time (9pm UK time) in their first round match against French pairing Richard Gasquet and Nicolas Mahut.

Andy Murray’s last singles win was against Richard Gasquet in that epic back from the dead 4th round performance at Wimbledon, before Murray was outplayed by Nadal in the quarter finals. Since that match Gasquet has played and won a clay tournament in Stuttgart whilst Murray opted to rest ahead of a busy hard court season.

Though Andy Murray does not play doubles on a regular basis, he is no stranger the game, he has competed in four doubles event this year so far with 3 wins out 7 matches and is a regular in the Davis cup doubles rubber.

Earlier this summer, he partnered long time friend Daniel Vallverdu at Queen’s Club and actually won their first round match against Richard Gasquet and Nicolas Mahut, they same team that Jamie and Andy will meet today. It was a close match that day in June with Murray and Vallverdu winning 4-6 7-5 10-4.

Andy and Jamie have not played together this year yet, but they did play 4 tournaments last year, winning 3 out of 7 matches, though won loss was due to a retirement from an injury to Andy Murray.

After Andy Murray’s loss today, all British tennis hopes again lie with Jamie Murray, the current Wimbledon mixed doubles champion. Jamie Murray and his partner American Liezel Huber started their quarter final match on court 2 just as Andy Murray was about to lose his own quarter final match.

The 12th seeded Brit-American duo were taking on the the second seeds Canadian Daniel Nestor and Chia-Jung Chuang of Taipei. The duo made few mistakes as they reached their second grand slam semi final together after they won 6-4 7-5.

Murray and Huber have played the last three grand slams together and have had decent success, recahing the semi finals in their first event together at the 2007 US open and only losing to eventual winners at the Australian Open and Rolland Garros.

Jamie Murray will be looking to reach his second straight Wimbledon mixed doubles final after winning the title with Serbian Jelena Jankovic last year. Jankovic pulled out of the mixed doubles to concentrate on her bid for the singles title,though unfortunately for Jankovic, she lost to unseeded Tamarine Tanasugarn in the 4th round of the ladies event.

After Jelena Jankovic announced that she would not be defending her Wimbledon mixed doubles title, it was expected that Jamie Murray would team up with American (ex South African) Liezel Huber. This was confirmed today. 

Last year Jamie Murray became the first British player in over 20 years to lift a Wimbledon title when he partner Jelena Jankovic beat Jonas Björkman and Alicia Molik. Unfortunatly the Serb has opted not to defend their title in order to focus on the singles. Murray said last week

Jelena’shaving problems with her arm and will just concentrate on the singles at Wimbledon,” said Murray. “It would have been good to defend the title but it is not the end of the world. I half-expected it.

Since that win though Jamie Murray has partnered with Liezel Huber at the US open, Australian Open and last month’s French Open, so when Jankovic withdrew it was widely anticipated that Huber would be Jamie’s partner providing she hadn’t signed to play with some else.

On their first outing together at the US Open last year they made it all the way to the semi finals were they lost to India Leander Paes and American Meghann Shaughnessy in 3 close sets. In their next two grand slams together they lost to the eventual winners. At the Australian open they lost to 5th seeds Chinese Tiantian Sun CHN and Serbia’s Nenad Zimonjic in the second round and lost in the quarters to third seeds Belerus’s Victoria Azarenka and American Bob Bryan.

Liezel’s the best in the world at what she does and we played the last three Grand Slams together, In the last two Grand Slams, we lost to the guys who won the tournament and we made the semi-finals of the US Open, so we think we can do well.

Huber has just been announced on the USA Olympic team and Murray and her should make a formidable partnership and will be real contenders for this year’s title, Huber said on Murray,

He’s very laid back whereas I’m planned so it’s a good mix,” she said. “But he could crash the ball at the girls more. He’s a bit nice to them, a proper Englishman. I try to encourage him not to be nice to girls….I think we are a team that should win titles. Unfortunately, we drew strong opponents at the French Open but he’s a great player and should be a contender at all tournaments.

Jamie Murray will play with his regular partner Max Mirnyi in the men’s doubles, they will be seeded 12th and they will face French pair Fabrice Santoro and Marc Gicquel in the first round. Huber and Cara Black are the number 1 seeds in the ladies event.