Tennis: Murray battles past German qualifier

World number four wins opening-round clash at Dubai Open.

DUBAI: Andy Murray overcame stiff resistance from German qualifier Michael Berrer to win his first-round clash 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 at the Dubai Open.

The tournament’s third-seed and world number four, who led by one set and a break at 3-2, saved eight of 13 break points to prevail in two hours and seven minutes. Murray now faces Swiss qualifier Marco Chiudinelli, who beat former world number three Nikolay Davydenko of Russia 6-4, 5-7, 6-4.

Earlier, world number one Novak Djokovic experienced the emotions of victory and defeat as he re-started his season with an unusual dual role. Novak’s 6-4, 6-2 win against Cedric-Marcel Stebe, a talented and improving young German, was a resourceful performance given his five-week absence from competition since his exhausting Australian Open triumph.

But it was preceded by a Djokovic defeat. That was his 20-year-old younger brother Marco, whom he was mentoring, and whose fate he seemed to experience almost as strongly as his own. Novak, the triple Grand Slam champion, experimented with some extra net attacks and different tactical ploys, and yet retained the capacity for a tighter focus after Stebe got him break point down at 1-2 in the second set.

But Marco the wild card entry was playing only his third match on the ATP Tour and was unable to do himself much justice during a 6-3, 6-2 loss to Andrey Golubev.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 29^th, 2012.