Murrays fight back to down Butorac/Nieminen in the first round – Rakuten Japan Open 2012
Andy Murray and Jamie Murray of Great Britain made a successful start to defend their doubles title, as they defeated the American-Finn duo of Eric Butorac and Jarkko Nieminen in the first round of the Rakuten Japan Open Tennis Championships in Tokyo on Thursday.
Murrays lost the first set but then rallied to topple Butorac and Nieminen, 5-7, 6-3, 10-4 after a tough competition of one hour and 27 minutes.
The British pair downed Frantisek Cermak and Filip Polasek in the final of this ATP World Tour 500 hard court event last year to capture their second tour level team title.
Andy/Jamie and Butorac/Nieminen started the contest in a stable manner, as they did not drop their serve in the first half of the opening set, levelling the proceedings at 3-3. The American-Finn combination broke Murray brothers in the seventh to go up 4-3 but they Brits struck back immediately to equalise the score at 4-4. Butorac and Nieminen grabbed another breakthrough in the 11th and capitalised on that to win 7-5.
After going down in a close first set, Murrays started to play attackingly in the second and it went well, as they snatched opening three games to take a 3-0 lead. The British tandem maintained its lead till the end, sealing it 6-3.
Andy and Jamie attained lead at the very beginning of the match tie-breaker and kept on stretching it, triumphing 10-4.
Murrays will now take on the top seeded Indian-Czech pair of Leander Paes and Radek Stepanek in the second round.
Seeded first in the singles draw and being defending champion in that event too, Andy made a the best possible start, as he crushed Lukas Lacko of Slovakia in straight sets 6-1, 6-2 in the second round.
He said, “He had a good US Open and did well in Cincinnati. I think hard courts are a good surface for him. I’ve had a lot of tough matches with him over the years, especially on the hard courts. I would expect the same on Friday.”
Murray is drawn to take on Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland in the quarter-finals.
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