Murray: Third career title

Andy Murray scored an emphatic win over Fernando Verdasco to win the St Petersburg Open.

The young Scot beat his Spanish opponent 6-2 6-3 to earn his third career title, after his two successes in San Jose.

After an outstanding week in Russia, Murray is now well placed to qualify for the prestigious Masters Cup in Shanghai.

The season-ending event is open to the top eight players in the ATP 2007 Race and Murray is now just three points behind Tommy Haas, who occupies the eighth spot.

Only one ranking tournament remains - this week’s Paris Masters - before the Masters Cup.

Settled

Murray settled quickly against Verdasco, maintaining the impressive form he has shown since recovering from the wrist injury which wrecked his summer.

Both men won their first service games but Murray found a way through in just the third game, breaking a nervy-looking Verdasco who produced an unforced error on his backhand to hand his opponent the game.

Murray lost the first two points of the next game but battled back well on serve to go 3-1 ahead, closing out the game with a fine drop shot - a good sign after he gifted Dmitry Tursunov a handful of points attempting a similar tactic earlier in the competition.

Two more games followed serve before the Scot earned a second break, producing some bold attacking tennis to take a three-game lead.

One nerveless service game later and the first set was his.

The second set has often been Murray’s stumbling block - as witnessed in his epic clash with Mikhail Youzhny in the last four - but this time he broke at the first attempt, continuing his dominance of the Spaniard by beating him to love on his own serve.

The next two games passed without incident and in the fourth game of the set Verdasco finally tested the 20-year-old.

He brought Murray to deuce on his own serve with some intelligently-positioned shots but when a break seemed imminent Murray pulled out his best winner of the match on his way to a 3-1 lead.

Murray spurned three break points in a mammoth game which Verdasco eventually held to make it 3-2.

The Scot then earned himself two match points as he claimed a second break of the set, claiming the first to triumph 6-3.

Popularity: 21% [?]

Tags: Murray, victorious, Russia

Posted on October 28th, 2007 by Klaus Roe
Filed under: Tennis, Fun and Games