Madrid Masters

[Sir David Gray]

Andy Murray finally returned to a tennis court this afternoon, for the first time in an ATP event since reaching the US Open final last month.

As one of the top seeds, he had a bye into the 2nd round where he played Simone Bolelli of Italy. The first set was a breeze for Murray winning it 6-0 in just 30 minutes. And with Murray leading 2-1 in the second set Bolelli retired with a shoulder injury that appeared to occur at the start of the second set.

He will now face Marin Cilic of Croatia in the third round after he beat Fernando Verdasco.

The other top seed in action today is world number one Rafael Nadal who will play Latvian Ernests Gulbis later this evening.

[Sir David Gray]

Andy Murray played his first full match on the ATP tour since his US Open final last month.

He was playing the 20 year old Croatian Marin Cilic. Murray managed to come back from 3-5 down in the first set to win it 7-5, despite Cilic having 3 set points when it was 5-4.

The second set was going on serve until the eighth game when Murray broke Cilic to go 5-3 up. However Cilic broke right back and then held his own serve to level the set at 5-5. Both men held their next service games and it was into a tie-break.

Murray won the tie-break with relative ease (7-2) and moves into the 1/4 finals in Madrid.

He will now face Frenchman Gael Monfils who beat Andy Roddick in 3 sets earlier today.

Rafael Nadal is in action just now against Richard Gasquet and Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic play this evening.

[Sir David Gray]

Andy Murray reached the semi finals in Madrid after a convincing win over Frenchman Gael Monfils. Murray won 6-2 6-2.

He will now play world number two Roger Federer, tomorrow, just over a month after Federer hammered him in New York. Federer beat Juan Martin Del Potro 6-3 6-3.

The other semi final will be between Rafael Nadal and Gilles Simon. Nadal beat Feliciano Lopez 6-4 6-4 and Simon defeated big serving Croatian Ivo Karlovic 7-6 4-6 7-6.

[Moulin Yarns]

Federer takes the first set 6-3

[Moulin Yarns]

Murray 3-1 up in the second set!!:thumbsup:

[Moulin Yarns]

Woo Hoo 4-1 for Murray second set:thumbsup:

[Moulin Yarns]

5-3 to Murray, serving to level the match

1 set each. now the decider

[Moulin Yarns]

4-4 deciding set

[Sir David Gray]

Wasn't on at all at the weekend so I haven't been able to comment on Murray's semi final or final.

First of all the semi final win was excellent and he showed a lot of character to win that having lost the first set and the hammering he received in New York being very fresh in the memory.

I have only seen brief highlights of the final as I was otherwise engaged yesterday afternoon :wink:. From what I gather it wasn't a great match but it was always going to be like that after Simon's long match against Nadal the day before.

Anyway two Masters titles in a row cannot be sniffed at and I think it must be only a matter of time before Murray overtakes Novak Djokovic and becomes the third best player in the world.

He now travels to Russia later this week for the St Petersburg Open, which he won last year and is also the number one seed this year.

He then plays the Paris Masters next week where he will be looking to make it a hat-trick of Masters Series titles.

Murray finishes his long season next month at the Masters Cup in Shanghai when the top eight players of the year all meet up for the showpiece event.