Progress for Murray and partner in Qatar Open

Tennis

anDy Murray won through to the second round of the men’s doubles at the qatar Open after he took a champions tiebreak victory along with nenad Zimonjic of serbia.

Murray and Zimonjic lost the first set 6-3 to German pair Daniel Brands and Florian Meyer but hit back to take the next 7-6 (7/5) on the tie-break. That took the match into a champions tiebreak and Murray and Zimonjic won that 10-8.

The world no 4 had returned to action in the Mubadala World Tennis championship exhibition in abu Dhabi on Boxing Day following back surgery. The Wimbledon champion lost to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga before beating stanislas Wawrinka to finish fifth in the exhibition tournament. He had a minor operation on a long-standing back problem in september, bringing his season to an early end.

Fourth seed Tomas Berdych crashed out in qatar after a straight sets defeat by Ivo Karlovic in Doha.

czech Berdych was defeated in both sets on tie-breaks by his croatian opponent. Karlovic won 7-6 (9/7), 7-6 (7/4) to reach the second round, where he will be joined by Gael Monfils. The Frenchman was a comfortable winner against colombian santiago Giraldo. eighth seed Fernando Verdasco won in straight sets against Italy’s Filippo Volandri, while Poland’s Lukasz Kubot won his first round match with spaniard Daniel Gimeno-Traver 6-4, 6-3.

Meanwhile, Britain’s Dan evans beat Japan’s Taro Daniel in straight sets in qatar qualifying. number two evans, who has failed to reach the same heights after making the third round of last season’s us Open, won 6-2, 6-2 to reach the main draw.

In queensland, world no 4 Maria sharapova wasted no time in progressing to the second round of the Brisbane International with a straight-sets victory over caroline Garcia.

The Russian had only played once since pulling out of Wimbledon last summer with a shoulder injury but she produced a fearsome all-round performance in australia. sharapova went through 6-3, 6-0 in 64 minutes and will pose a serious threat on this form to the title aspirations of the top two seeds, serena Williams and Victoria azarenka.

she was joined by number five seed angelique Kerber, who eased through in straight sets against Kristina Mladenovic.

ninth seed Dominika cibulkova enjoyed a 6-4, 6-3 victory over Britain’s Heather Watson.

In the men’s draw, seventh seed Dmitry Tursunov failed to clear the first hurdle, losing in straight sets to american sam querrey. Fifth seed Grigor Dimitrov eased to a 6-2, 6-3 victory over Robin Haase.

2013 reVIeW OF THe year, paGes 58-59