Misery for Murray in Cincinnati
ANDY MURRAY’S comeback faltered last night with a first-round exit at the Cincinnati masters.
Having started dreadfully against Frenchman Lucas Pouille, the 31- year- 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 Rogers Cup in toronto and yesterday’s defeat could leave him short of match fitness ahead of the uS Open that starts 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 first set.
Pouille broke in the first game of the match and won the opening set with worrying ease.
murray roused himself in the second set and began to play more on the front foot. there have been reports 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 as if 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 early on. had he won this match he faced the prospect of a third-round clash with Roger Federer.
he can only hope his draw in the year’s final Grand Slam in new york will be more benign.