Ohhhhh dear, well its a shame to open a new blog post with some bad news, well ok its nothing too serious, but its not too good for tennis's British No.1, Andy Murray, who has once again gone out early from the BNP Parbis Open at Indian Wells, again in straight sets to a qualifier, this time to Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, in 6-4, 6-2.
In another puzzling display of really poor tennis, Andy failed to get anything going in what must fast be shaping up to be his least favourite tournament on the tour, as his backhand, usually his best and most reliable shot in his game, let him down spectacularly. Garcia-Lopez, while I didn't see the match, and to be honest don't think I want to either, obviously played great from start to finish, especially in dispatching the World No.4 in such a straight forward fashion. But it really is a bizarre reocurrence of his defeat from last year as well, where he lost to Donald Young (mind you this time Young has already gone out!). Indian Wells has not been kind to Andy, but that aside, you really think he shouldn't be losing matches to qualifiers in his first match, and he had a really good run the week before in Dubai. But I guess as Sam Stosur said at the Australian Open, when she went out in her first round match in Melbourne, that you can't pick and chose when you play your best tennis. And sometimes that first match can be the toughest of all, and qualifiers are already match sharp as they have a few matches under their belt coming into the opening rounds in the main draw.
So I guess we can put it down to just another bad day at the office for the Muzza, but he has to ensure that he doesn't go out early once again in Miami, as that would be yet another blow, and would endanger his No.4 ranking. At this rate Andy's goal to reach No.1, is a long long long long way off, but as long as he can try and up his game and improve his consistency then it won't be impossible, just extremely difficult. And he has been known to have these dips in form now and then, as even last year in Montreal, where he was the defending champion of the Rogers Cup, he lost in his opening match to the South African giant Kevin Anderson, also in straight sets but he then went on to win the Cincinnati 1000 Masters series title the very next week. Since then Andy has said to have had a phone conversation with his coach Ivan Lendl about the loss, who helped him put it into perspective, although he didn't say too much about the advice Lendl gave him. Personally I think Andy was probably a little haunted by his scarring experience at Indian Wells last year, and while he said he felt much better than he did last year, it probably still lingered. But Andy has vowed to ensure that it doesn't happen again next time, so here's hoping he doesn't suffer another early exit in Miami, or if he does, at least make it to the 3rd round! ;-) Andy also has previously won the Miami title back in 2009, and he defeated none other than Novak Djokovic. To date the Sony Ericsson Open remains Andy's biggest title, although it is a 1000 Masters series title, it lasts over the standard one week, and nearly as long as a grand slam, so it definitely has that big title feel to it.
In the meantime he's still got the doubles to play with his brother Jamie, and funnily enough they are up against their other compatriots, the fast rising doubles partnership of Colin Fleming and Ross Hutchins. And much to my surprise the Murrays ended up winning the match, but it was a real tight one as it went to a tense tiebreaker, which they won, the result being 3-6, 6-2, 13-11. So that is the Murrays through to the 2nd doubles round where they next face Max Mirni and Daniel Nestor, who to be honest I'd favour Mirni and Nestor to win because they are a formidable doubles team in the top 10, but we shall see how it goes.
So Andy may be out of the BNP Paribas Open, but the rest of the top seeds are still very much in, as Djokovic eased through his first match against Andrev Gobulev in 6-3, 6-2, in about 80 minutes, and Berdych battled past Sergiy Stahkovsky in a 2 and a half hour encounter winning in 3 sets. Also Andy Roddick made it through in a tough encounter against Lukas Kubot, winning in 4-6, 7-6, 6-3. And today Rafa and Roger are out playing their respective matches, so you should expect fairly straight forward victories for them.
And on the ladies side, the defending champion, Caroline Wozniacki, former World No.1, breezed through her opening match in 6-2, 6-0, as did Sam Stosur in 6-0, 6-3, and Maria Sharapova as well in 6-0, 6-2 against Geisa Dulko. And there is full coverage of the ladies campaign on Eurosport throughout the week, which I will be keeping a close eye on, starting tonight, so I'm really looking forward to that one. And as a brief update on that, Victoria Azarenka the new World No.1, in her first round match on Friday had a real scare against the up and coming German player, Mona Barthel, who pushed her to the absolute limit in a 3 hour battle. Vika clearly not on form, played some incredibly poor tennis herself, but unlike Andy Murray, she was really fortunate to stave off Barthel's attack, who even had a chance to serve for the match twice. But Victoria managed to come through it in the end, holding on to the last point, and barely scraped through to her 18th successive match win, in 6-4, 6-7, 7-6.
This was a rather surprising near defeat for Azarenka, who normally is so rock solid in the early matches, but Barthel is without a doubt a very talented player, who played some great tennis, and some times, as I said that first match can sometimes be the toughest. But I expect Victoria will play much better from hereon in, her next match today is up against Svetlana Kuznetsova, so I would expect her to come through that one, unless she gets injured! ;-)
Right that's more than enough for now. More to follow....
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