Murray upset by Monaco in Rome
Andy Murray suffers shock defeat in second round of Rome Masters
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Wednesday, 29, Apr 2009 10:44
World number four Andy Murray has suffered a shock defeat in the second round of the Rome Masters, losing 1-6 6-3 7-5 to Argentina's Juan Monaco.
An out-of-sorts Murray failed to capitalise on several chances, despite breaking his opponent six times in a topsy-turvy encounter, which saw him eliminated from the clay court tournament just a week after reaching his first semi-final on the surface in Monte Carlo.
Early on there was little sign of the trouble to come for the in-form Briton, who started the better of the two and quickly raced to a 5-0 lead with back-to-back breaks of serve.
Eventually Monaco held it together enough to get on the board at 1-5 but the higher seed quickly re-established his dominance as he took his second set point for an easy start.
The second set was a different story, however, as the fired-up Argentinean came out of the blocks quicker and Murray lost his rhythm.
After exchanging two breaks apiece, Monaco grabbed a crucial advantage at 5-3 and served out - despite a brief wobble – to level things up.
And a frustrated Murray continued in his funk early in the third as, after each man had held in their opening service games, the world number four dropped his serve in disappointing fashion as Monaco pressed.
This sparked an astonishing run of breaks of serve, with Monaco being broken twice either side of another poor game from Murray letting the South American claw back his advantage.
At 4-4 the British number one regained his composure to take a critical 5-4 lead on serve and put the pressure back onto Monaco.
But a patchy performance was completed as Murray failed to take his chances in the next game and was broken to love in the following exchanges as the outsider gave himself another chance to win through.
And he didn't disappoint his fans this time, taking his second match point on serve, when Murray netted a routine backhand to take his place in round three against Marin Cilic.