Jamie’s jinx goes on as pairing fail to book final spot
Jamie Murray’s semi-final jinx continued yesterday as the Dunblane player and Liverpool’s Neal Skupski failed to reach today’s Shanghai Masters final.
The Britons have now lost five ATP semis since joining forces before Wimbledon, and to rub salt into Murray’s wounds, this latest defeat was handed out by his former doubles partner, Brazilian Bruno Soares.
Eighth seeds Soares and Mate Pavic had beaten the number one seeds in the quarter-finals, and their confidence was clear as they brushed past Murray and Skupski in straight sets, 7-5, 6-4.
Meanwhile, Heather Watson continued her impressive form by storming into the Tianjin Open final with a straight-sets victory over Veronika Kudermetova.
The British No. 2 showed no signs of nerves in her first WTA Tour semi-final in more than a year, winning 6-1 6-4 in one hour and 14 minutes.
Having also pulled off fine victories over second seed Wang Qiang and Magda Linette in this tournament, Watson will now face Rebecca Peterson in the final after the Swede beat Ons Jabeur.
The 27-year-old, who will return to the top 100 next week, needed just over three hours to get past Linette in the last-eight on Friday.
But there was no fatigue on show yesterday as she raced through the first set in just 25 minutes, breaking twice as Kudermetova struggled with her serve.
Watson moved 4-2 ahead in the second set and, despite seeing two match points go begging, she got the job done to reach her fourth career
WTA final.