Andy Murray stunned by Nicolas Mahut in the second round – AEGON Championships 2012
Top seed, Andy Murray of Great Britain, crashed out of the event, as he was beaten by France’s Nicolas Mahut, ranked 65th in the world, in three sets 3-6, 7-6(4), 6-7(1) in the second round at the AEGON Championships
in London on Wednesday. The Brit, who was also the defending champion, faced defeat after a close fight of two hours and 35 minutes.
Mahut and Murray held their serve in the first five games to take the score to 3-2 in the favour of the former. The Frenchman struck at that moment and capitalised on the only break of serve to win 6-3.
After getting stunned in the opener, Murray made an ideal start in the second set, as he captured first three games and attained a 3-0 lead. However, a motivated fight back from his opponent saw the scores getting levelled at 3-3.
Both players held their serve in the following six games to take the score to 6-6 and force a tie-breaker. Mahut and Murray went neck to neck till 4-4 but the Brit succeeded in claiming three straight points after that, sealing it 7-6(4).
Murray hit a blow to the Frenchman in the very first game of the decider to go up 1-0 but Mahut did not take much time to even out the proceedings at 1-1. The rest of the set went with the serves to level the score at 6-6 and take
it to a tie-breaker. However, Mahut played almost flawlessly this time, as he allowed the Brit to win only one point and grabbed it 7-6(1).
Talking to the reporters after that match, a jubilant Mahut said, "My best win before was [Rafael] Nadal here on the same court, centre court, so it's a lucky court for me."
On the other hand, a dejected Murray stated, "It was a very close match... losing serve at the beginning of the third set after breaking him was probably not great. Got him back into the match. He's a very good grass court player.
He's been in the final here. He's beaten Nadal and a point away from winning the tournament. I was hitting the ball fine today. It wasn't like I was shanking balls and mishitting. I just need to spend more time on the grass."
Mahut is slated to play Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria in the round of 16. The Bulgarian stunned the 14th seed, Gilles Muller, in the second round.
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