Misery for Murray in Cincinnati loss
ANDY MURRAY’S comeback faltered last night with a firstround exit at the Cincinnati Masters.
Having started dreadfully against Frenchman Lucas Pouille, the 31year-old Scot fought back in the second set but ran out of steam, going down 6-1, 1-6, 6-4.
In the fourth tournament he has played since hip surgery in January, Murray was too inconsistent against a player he had beaten in all four of their previous meetings.
It was a tough first round draw and the No 16 seed struck 40 winners to Murray’s 15.
The road back from hip trouble to the top of the sport was always going to be a rocky one and this was a let-down after Murray’s stirring exploits in Washington at the start of the month.
The Scot fought through three rounds of the Citi Open but pulled out of his quarter-final match after an exhausting last 16 battle.
He also withdrew from last week’s Roger’s Cup in Toronto and yesterday’s defeat could leave him short of match fitness ahead of the US Open, which begins in two weeks.
He could accept a wildcard into the Winston-Salem Open in North Carolina which begins on Saturday.
Murray’s run in Washington ended with him sobbing into his towel after winning a draining clash with Marius Copil at 3am local time.
The Scot seemed to be carrying some of the exhaustion of that match into Cincinnati as he sent down six double faults and 11 unforced errors in the opening set.
Pouille, an enterprising all-court player, broke in the first game of the match and eased through 6-1.
Murray roused himself in the second set and began to play more on the front foot. There have been reports that he has decided he must play more aggressively if he is to be successful on his comeback, with his body perhaps not up the grinding counter-punching style which comes most naturally to him.
He certainly began to dictate more of the points and Pouille went into his shell.
The first game of the deciding set was a 13-minute epic on the Murray serve and it felt like whoever could come through would seize decisive momentum.
Pouille was bullying the Murray second serve, which has looked his most vulnerable shot since his return. Facing a second break point and obviously fearing the treatment that another 80mph serve would receive, Murray went for a blast down the middle but found the net for a double fault. With that break the momentum shifted and Pouille served out to score a significant win.
The trouble for Murray, with his ranking at 375, is that he is at the mercy of the draw and liable to run into seeds such as Pouille early on. Had he won this match he faced the prospect of a third-round clash with Roger Federer who must now facy his chances of outright victory given the absence of
World number one Rafael Nadal has pulled out of the tournament.
The 32-year-old Spaniard, who won the title in 2013, felt he needed a rest following Sunday’s 6-2 7-6 (7/4) victory over Greek youngster Stefanos Tsitsipas at the Rogers Cup in Toronto.
‘I am very sorry to announce that I won’t be playing in Cincinnati this year,” Nadal wrote on Twitter.
‘No other reason than personally taking care of my body and trying to keep as healthy as I feel now.’
The US Open, the final grand slam of the year, starts on August 27.