Aisam-Rojer advance at Monte Carlo

Pair registers straight-sets win in second round.

Pakistan tennis ace Aisamul Haq Qureshi and Dutch partner Jean-Julien Rojer continued their impressive run, registering a comfortable second-round win over British duo of Colin Fleming and Jonathan Marray 6-4, 6-1 in their doubles encounter at the Monte Carlo Masters yesterday, according to atpworldtour.com.

The fourth-seeded pair of Aisam and Rojer won the doubles event at the Miami Masters last month and the pair’s good form continued as they took under an hour to beat Fleming and Marray.

Error-strewn Murray in shock exit

Meanwhile, Roger Federer will return to second in the ATP standings next week after Andy Murray collapsed to a 6-1, 6-2 third-round loss to Stanislas Wawrinka at the singles event of the Monte Carlo Masters.

A shell-shocked Murray committed 24 unforced errors as he lost to Federer’s Swiss compatriot, seeded 13th, in 58 minutes.

Murray, a quarter-finalist here a year ago, went nil for two on break points and lost his own serve five times in the rout which sends him back to the practice court for the next fortnight in hopes of repairing his game for the Madrid Masters in early May.

“I made a lot of mistakes, 24 unforced errors is far too many,” said Murray who had regained the number two world ranking on the strength of his win in the Miami Masters. That’s a set’s worth.  That’s where half the points went.

“I’ve played some good tournaments here.  But, yeah, it does take me time to feel comfortable on the surface.



“I need matches against top players to see what’s going wrong and what’s going right, things I need to work on to get better.”

Meanwhile,Rafael Nadal stepped up his campaign for an historic ninth straight title at the event as the third seed won his 44th match in a row at the venue with a 6-2, 6-4 defeat of German Philip Kohlschreiber.

The Spanish great lifted his record at the seaside Country Club to 46-1 at a tournament where he suffered his lone defeat in 2003 against Guillermo Coria.

Nadal will next line up in the quarter-finals against Grigor Dimitrov, who beat Germany’s Florian Mayer with an identical 6-2, 6-4 scoreline.

Nadal advanced in 80 minutes and earned revenge for his only loss to Kohlschreiber from 10 meetings, a grass quarter-final defeat from last summer in Halle. This win was his 16th in a row after successive titles this season in Indian Wells and Acapulco.

“It was a great win for me,” said Nadal, who follows the same script for every victory. “I’m very happy. Every match is a new one for me, every day is completely different. We will see what goes on tomorrow. But I just love playing here and feel a great emotion every time I step onto the court here.”

Italian Fabio Fognini sprung a surprise on fourth-seed Tomas Berdych, dismissing the Czech 6-4, 6-2. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga thrilled his home fans as he overwhelmed Jurgen Melzer 6-3, 6-0.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 19^th, 2013.