In tennis and all things in life, things can come in swings and roundabouts and once again poor fortune has favoured itself on Britain's No.1 Andy Murray, as the start of the second leg of his hard court season hasn't proved any better than the first. In short Andy went out in the Montreal Masters in his first match, for the fourth time this year, as he lost to the South African giant Kevin Anderson in straight sets 6-3. 6-1. Andy was the defending champion for the last two years running so to go out so early again is a real shock.
This was without a doubt the worst defeat he has suffered all year, and it really is totally baffling as to why Andy keeps going through these losing streaks. I guess it is tough to play consistently well throughout the year even if you are a top player, but its not like Andy has had a terrible record leading up to Montreal, far from it in fact. Its almost like being back on hard court is a bitter reminder of his loss at the Australian Open again, like a change of surface was just what Andy needed but now he is back on the hard stuff, its tougher for him to adjust to it. But perhaps maybe the lack of match play over the last few weeks has left Andy a little bit sluggish as he hasn't played a match in about a month since the Davis Cup victory against Great Britain. So perhaps all he needs is to play some more matches to get back into his rythym, he said himself post match he felt nothing was going on and he felt sluggish, so its all about getting into it once again. He rightly also has entered the doubles with Jamie, so hopefully that will help him sharpen his game up a bit more.
But it does leave the worrying feeling that we will see the recurring pattern once again that we saw earlier this year, with Andy going back to a puzzling losing streak. I don't know if the bitter sting of losing out in Wimbledon once again had got to him, but then again he did very well at the Davis Cup, so surely he would have been fired up after that. Another worry of course is with the US Open in just three weeks time, its not the best moment to go out and start losing matches early again and in the last two years Andy hasn't had the best record at the US Open either, so this won't do much to better his chances either.
However that aside, it is only one tournament, and he does have Cincinati to play in next week, so hopefully Andy can pull it together again, but if we see him exit early again, it frankly is going to be a real worry, cos the US Open will be a real short lived affair for him if he continues. But again looking at the WTA Rogers Cup side, Marion Bartoli for one has gone out in the first round also, as has Jelena Jankovic, well she hasn't had the best year either. But just maybe it was a lack of match play and also probably just a bad day at the office, so better luck next time Andy, and Marion and Jelena too for that matter. In fact reading Jelena's feedback on her loss to Julia Georges she also felt she was playing really sluggish and couldn't get anything going, so perhaps there is something in the air in Canada!
Onto other matches in Montreal, Djokovic will play Nikolai Davydenko in his first match, which should be no probs for the Serb, and big John Isner takes on Marcos Baghdatis. As for Rafa and Federer their matches must be on tomorrow so I will look forward to following them since the Muzza is now out the picture. There are also plenty of really good matches coming up for the WTA ladies Rogers Cup as Serena Williams is in action as is Kim Clijsters, and its really good to see Kim back in action too, it would be great if she can play really well from now on as she has had a terrible spot earlier this year too despite winning the Australian Open at the beginning of 2011. Caroline Wozniacki will also be in action today too as she faces Roberta Vinci, Caroline currently is also the defending champion of the WTA Rogers Cup, hopefully she can do better than Andy did. Although I'm not fully convinced that Caroline can defend her title this year, she could well do, but with Serena Williams in the draw and getting back to her best, she might struggle to beat her. But its part of the fun of the game, seeing which of the top players can emerge the winner, do either way it should be good.
Soooo that is it!!
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