US OPEN No joy for Jamie as doubles bid comes up short
Jamie dream shattered by French duo in doubles f inal
JAMIE MURRAY’S dreams of emulating his younger brother, Andy, and winning a US Open title were left blowing in the breeze last night after he and Australian doubles partner John Peers lost the final to French pair Nicolas Mahut and PierreHugues Herbert.
They were beaten 6-4, 6-4 in 69 minutes, with Murray losing his serve at the end after being the more solid player.
The consolation is they are virtually assured a place in November’s Barclays ATP World Tour Finals after this run, but it was a bitter disappointment after losing the Wimbledon final, too.
‘I’m starting to know what Andy felt like for a long time,’ said Murray. ‘But we’ll keep trying to get over the line in a Grand Slam.’
The match began in a sparsely populated Arthur Ashe Stadium although there was nothing sparse about the prize-money at stake, with £372,000 going to the winning pair and £180,000 shared by the losers.
Exactly a week on the atmosphere will be very different for the Davis Cup semi-final against Australia in Glasgow, for which Peers will be stuck at home in Melbourne.
Yesterday’s doubles finalists had met each other once before – when the French narrowly won in Holland — but since then the GB-Australia team have had the experience of a Wimbledon final, while Murray enjoyed a morale-boosting Davis Cup quarter-final win against France in July.
One of his opponents then was Mahut, so Murray will have known his nerve can be vulnerable under pressure. The Frenchman began in edgy fashion, having to save three break points in the opening game.
Peers, who had looked less steady in the Wimbledon final, did exactly the same in the next game, so no early advantage was gained. The better two players were Murray and the lesser-known Herbert, an elegant ball-striker. The GB-Aussie partner- ship forced two more break points at 4-4, but Peers netted a straightforward backhand volley on one. He then compounded the error by getting broken to love to lose the set.
Murray was the more solid performer before hitting trouble on his serve at 4-5 in the second set.
Some sublime angles from Herbert set up two match points but Mahut’s return was wild on the first.
There then followed the point of the match, a brilliant quickfire exchange which ended, appropriately, with the outstanding Herbert hitting a reflex volley to clinch the doubles title.
Peers said: ‘You have to look at the positives. This is a great court but it just wasn’t to be today.’