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PARIS: Great Britain’s Andy Murray plays a backhand return to Australia’s Alex De Minaur during their men’s singles match on day one of the Paris ATP Masters 1000 tennis tournament at the Accor Arena - Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy - in Paris. – AFP
PARIS: Great Britain’s Andy Murray plays a backhand return to Australia’s Alex De Minaur during their men’s singles match on day one of the Paris ATP Masters 1000 tennis tournament at the Accor Arena - Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy - in Paris. – AFP

Murray misses match point as De Minaur jinx continues

Swiatek wins opener, Gauff thrashes Jabeur at WTA Finals

PARIS: Andy Murray missed a match point and blew a 5-2 lead in the final set to suffer his sixth straight defeat to Alex de Minaur in the Paris Masters first round on Monday. The three-time Grand Slam champion appeared poised to finally clinch a first win over Australian De Minaur after a double-break in the deciding set, but slumped to a 7-6 (7/5), 4-6, 7-5 loss.

Murray has still not won a match at Bercy Arena since lifting the title in 2016 en route to finishing as the year-end world number one. The Briton saw three set points come and go before losing the first set in a tie-break, but bounced back to level the match and then take control.

But he twice failed to serve out the match, missing a match point in the 10th game. De Minaur instead secured victory to set up a second-round tie with either Serbian lucky loser Dusan Lajovic or French wildcard Benjamin Bonzi.

Murray let slip two game points in the 12th and final game before being broken again, smashing his racquet in frustration when his exit was confirmed after three hours on court. It was De Minaur’s fourth win over Murray this year.

Elsewhere on the first day of the tournament, American ninth seed Taylor Fritz swept aside Argentina’s Sebastian Baez 6-1, 6-4 to boost his hopes of reaching next month’s ATP Finals in Turin. Fritz is 10th in the standings for the season-ending event, with the top eight to qualify.

US Open semi-finalist Ben Shelton lost 7-6 (7/4), 5-7, 6-3 to Alejandro Davidovich Fokina. American 14th seed Frances Tiafoe lost 6-3, 6-4 to Alexander Bublik. The defeat ended Tiafoe’s slim hopes of reaching Turin. Karen Khachanov, the 2018 champion, progressed with a 6-4, 6-4 win over Australia’s Max Purcell. Meanwhile, world number two Iga Swiatek overcame a shaky start to defeat Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova in straight sets in her opening WTA Finals match in Cancun. In Monday’s other clash, US Open champion Coco Gauff opened her tournament with a 6-0, 6-1 drubbing of Tunisia’s Ons Jabeur.

Polish star Swiatek looked out of sorts in an error-strewn first set in which she trailed 2-5 before roaring back to clinch a 7-6 (7/3), 6-0 victory. The 22-year-old four-time Grand Slam champion is bidding to reclaim her world number one ranking from Aryna Sabalenka at this week’s season-ending finals in Mexico. However that goal looked unlikely during a nervy opening from Swiatek, who was broken in her first service game before seventh seed Vondrousova held for a 2-0 lead. Swiatek managed to claw the break back in the fourth game to square the first set at 2-2 but then fell to pieces as Vondrousova broke for a 3-2 lead and then held to go 4-2 up.

Another shaky service game from Swiatek ended in a break of serve to leave Vondrousova in the driving seat at 5-2. But Vondrousova’s game collapsed thereafter, and Swiatek broke back twice in quick succession to level the set at 5-5 before holding for 6-5.

Although Vondrousova steadied the ship to hold serve and set up a tie break, it was only a temporary reprieve. Swiatek quickly took control of the breaker and clinched the set when Vondrousova double-faulted. Vondrousova’s service game went into meltdown in the second set, with Swiatek breaking her three times in a row.

Another Vondrousova double-fault left Swiatek 5-0 up, and the Pole sealed victory on her serve in the final game. “In the first part of the match I wasn’t feeling like I was playing bad,” Swiatek said. “I just felt like I was making mistakes on the last shots within the rally. I felt there was room for improvement but I didn’t need to change a lot.

“So I just tried to be more precise, not play risky.” The 19-year-old Gauff raced through the first set against Jabeur to win 6-0 in just 23 minutes and then shrugged off a lengthy rain delay to take the second set 6-1 for a convincing win. “Ons is a great player, so I felt really unsteady the whole match even though it didn’t look like that,” Gauff said. “But I’m just happy to finally get a win here in this event.” The WTA Finals sees eight players divided into two groups of four playing in a round-robin first phase, with the top two in each group advancing to the semi-finals on Saturday. — AFP

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