Andy falls again to supreme Djokovic

ANDY MURRAY’S efforts at the Shanghai Rolex Masters may have further consolidated his position as the second best player in the world, but he leaves China with a reminder there is still much ground to make up on the seemingly unstoppable world No 1 Novak Djokovic.

Murray hailed his stunning victory over Tomas Berdych on Friday as one of his best performances of the year, but he failed to reproduce that level yesterday in a 6-1, 6-3 semi-final defeat by Djokovic which lasted just 68 minutes.

Three years ago, after Murray’s historic victory in the 2012 US Open final to become the first British man to win a Grand Slam singles title in 76 years, Djokovic led their head-to-head record just 8-7. The Serbian has been so dominant since then, however, that he now leads 20-9, with 11 victories in their past 12 meetings on hard courts. Murray was brutally honest in his analysis. A hold of serve in the opening game was as good as it got in the first set. He finished up with six double faults and a first-serve percentage of only 45 per cent.

‘It was tough,’ said Murray. ‘I served poorly, in the first set especially. You can’t do that against Novak with the way he’s playing just now, the amount of confidence he has in his game, and the conditions here.

‘I made it extremely difficult for myself. If you show a bit of weakness, the best players can feel it, pounce on it and are able to play aggressive and run away with the match a little bit.’

Djokovic has a chance to claim his fifth Masters title of the year today when he takes on French 16th seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who beat Rafa Nadal 6-4, 0-6, 7-5.