Defending champion Murray knocked out of Queen’s
Andy Murray has succumbed to the same fate that yesterday befell three of the top five seeds in the third round at the Aegon Championships, with Mardy Fish booking a place in the quarter-finals at the defending champion’s expense.
While Andy Roddick, Novak Djokovic and Marin Cilic all made early exits at the Queen’s Club on Thursday, Murray had been left to sweat on whether or not he’d be joining them on the sidelines the next day when play was suspended due to poor light, much to Murray’s chagrin.
Play resumed on Friday morning with scores locked at 3-3 in the third set, and with neither player able to even come close to breaking serve, the match headed to a tiebreak, where Murray immediately established a mini-break, but after two conservative points by the British No. 1, the American took a 2-1 lead.
Soon after, Murray sent a forehand long to allow Fish to open up a 4-2 lead, and then rack up four match points. It only took one to seal the 6-4, 1-6, 7-6(2) victory for Fish, his second win against the world No. 4 this year.
Last night, the Scot had the momentum after levelling the scores at 3-3 in the final set, where he’d been 3-0 down, when officials declared the day’s play over and at the time Murray wasn’t happy about it.
“It’s ridiculous. I was at a tournament a week ago [the French Open] where they were playing until 9.20 at night. It’s like 8.15,” Murray fumed.
“Mardy says he doesn't want to play so we stop playing... The only reason he [Fish] wanted to stop was because it was 3-3,” Murray told umpire Cedric Mourier last night.
Fish will return to the court later today to play his quarter-final match against Frenchman Michael Llodra, who defeated fifth seed Cilic in the third round yesterday.
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