August 05, 2008	Tuesday	Sha'aban 2, 1429

CINCINNATI (Ohio), Aug 4: Andy Murray upset Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic 7-6, 7-6 to win his first Masters Series title on Sunday.

Murray could have won earlier but Djokovic survived four championship points when the Briton served leading 5-3 in the second set. He clinched it in the tiebreak on his sixth championship point.

Murray overcame the Serb with a fluent and imaginative display of ground strokes, showing he has the ability to climb up among the world’s top three, producing his second victory over Djokovic in successive weeks.

Defeat prevented Djokovic, already the winner of three of the four North American Masters Series titles in the last 18 months, from completing the quartet.

Djokovic had also ended soon-to-be world No 1 Rafael Nadal’s 32-match winning streak the evening before in their semi-final.

This time, in the heat of the day it was different.

Djokovic set out to attack Murray as he had Nadal, and to get flat attacks into the rallies to try to break up the Scot’s varieties of pace and spin.

But Murray was containing well and began to grow in confidence as the set went on, getting Djokovic in trouble on his serve at 2-2 and 3-3.

Both times the Serb had to save break points but he began to mistime more often and from the middle of the set Murray was holding serve more easily.

In the tiebreak, Djokovic lost a point against serve immediately when he struck a backhand drive too long.He pulled a forehand wide to go two mini-breaks down, and lost the set when he tried to break up another sequence of drives from Murray and hammered that flat and long.

Djokovic then suffered the disappointment of making a break early in the second set, only to be unable to consolidate it.

When Murray broke back for 2-2 and again for 5-3 Djokovic looked increasingly uncertain, risking his heavy attacks less often.

But in the crises, at match points down, he went for broke and it worked.

Twice Djokovic saved them with uninhibited flat drives, once a Murray net cord landed long, then Djokovic saved it with an outrageous drop shot which took a net cord and landed on the line.

Though Djokovic got back to 5-5, he faltered again in the tiebreak, this time his serve betraying him, two double faults landing him in deep trouble.

Although he then bravely saved a fifth match point, Murray finished it off at the sixth attempt with a neat serve and backhand drive combination.

SAFINA TRIUMPHS

MONTREAL: Russian seventh seed Dinara Safina overwhelmed Slovakia’s Dominika Cibulkova 6-2, 6-1 to claim the Montreal Cup and her second title in as many weeks.

Safina, who has won three of the five finals she has reached in her last six tournaments, needed only 68 minutes to beat the unseeded Slovakian.

Cibulkova earned her place in the final by defeating four seeds, including a quarter-final win over world No 2 Jelena Jankovic of Serbia.

But she had no answer to Safina, who quickly seized control in the opening set, breaking the diminutive 19-year-old at the first opportunity to go 3-0 ahead.

Safina broke Cibulkova again to take the first set then kept up the pressure to storm to a 4-0 lead in the second and easing to her third title of the season.

Safina will now turn her attention

to the Beijing Olympic Games where, based on recent form, she will rank among the gold medal contenders.—Reuters