Federer Upset By 19 Year Old Murray In Cincinnati

MASON, Ohio -- For the first time in two years, Roger Federer will not be advancing to a tournament final. Improbably, the player who ended his streak was Andy Murray.
The 19-year-old Brit took advantage of Federer's serving woes to stun the world's best player, 7-5, 6-4, on Wednesday in the second round of the ATP Western Southern Financial Group Masters.
<!-- INLINE TABLE (BEGIN) --><TABLE id=inlinetable cellSpacing=1 cellPadding=3 width=198 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TH style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #000000" colSpan=3><CENTER>Consecutive finals reached
in the Open Era</CENTER></TH><TR style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ececec" vAlign=top><TD style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #999999" width=58>Name</TD><TD style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #999999" width=58>Finals</TD><TD style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #999999" width=58>Years</TD></TR><TR style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" vAlign=top><TD width=88>Ivan Lendl </TD><TD width=18>18 </TD><TD width=68>'81-82 </TD></TR><TR style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ececec" vAlign=top><TD width=88>Roger Federer </TD><TD width=18>17 </TD><TD width=68>'05-06 </TD></TR><TR style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" vAlign=top><TD width=88>Guillermo Vilas </TD><TD width=18>13 </TD><TD width=68>'77 </TD></TR><TR style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ececec" vAlign=top><TD width=88>John McEnroe </TD><TD width=18>12 </TD><TD width=68>'84 </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!-- INLINE TABLE (END) -->
Since losing in the first round here to Dominik Hrbaty in 2004, Federer had advanced to 17 straight finals -- one shy of Ivan Lendl's ATP Tour record, set from 1981-82. The top seed and defending champion in Cincinnati, Federer had been 62-0 against everybody but Rafael Nadal this year and had won 55 straight matches in North America since the loss to Hrbaty.
The winner earlier this year at San Jose, Murray had reached the Washington final and Toronto semifinals in his first two tournaments under coach Brad Gilbert, but this was by far the biggest win of his young career.
The native of Scotland broke Federer four times in the first set, earning the decisive break in the 11th game.
Twice Murray was up a break in the second set only to see Federer counter, including in the eighth game to level the set at 4-4. But Murray broke again in the ninth game and held easily, completing the stunner with a backhand down the line.
Murray will face either 15th-seeded American Robby Ginepri or Russian Dmitry Tursunov in the third round Thursday.
Also in Federer's quarter of the draw, No. 9 Andy Roddick of the U.S. plays Belgian Kristof Vliegen and American Vincent Spadea opposes Juan Ignacio Chela of Argentina. Roddick outlasted Italian Daniele Bracciali in three tiebreaks on Tuesday.


Robert Laberge/Getty Images
Since winning the RCA Championships, Blake has failed to win back-to-back matches in his last three events.



In the first match at Centre Court, the second-seeded Nadal defeated Korean Hyung-Taik Lee, 6-4, 6-3. The Spanish lefthander had to rally for a 6-7 (5), 6-2, 6-3 win over American wild card Sam Querrey on Tuesday.
Nadal will meet 14th-seeded German Tommy Haas, a 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 winner over Frenchman Gilles Simon, in the third round.
Elsewhere in Nadal's quarter, 2003 French Open champion Juan Carlos Ferrero of Spain upset No. 6 James Blake of the U.S., 6-2, 6-4.
Blake has not won more than two matches in any of his past three tournaments since winning at Indianapolis last month.
Ferrero next will face Swede Robin Soderling.
Also in the bottom half of the draw, No. 4 Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia beat Russian Mikhail Youzhny, 6-4, 7-6 (7).
In the top half, No. 3 David Nalbandian of Argentina plays Swiss wild card Stanislas Wawrinka, with the winner to face either No. 13 Fernando Gonzalez of Chile or American Mardy Fish.
Eighth seed Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus ousted Frenchman Gael Monfils, 7-6 (8), 2-6, 6-1, to set up a meeting with a Spaniard, either No. 10 David Ferrer or Nicolas Almagro.

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what were the odds on this?

+1700 to +2250 at various points during the day

federer looked tired...

murray is quite an up and comer..

hopefully he see's roddick 2 rounds from now and blasts him off the court..

Well roger is only a semi-god, he's allowed to make a mistake occasionally.

Federer has been playing alot of 3 set matches lately. Tired or is the gap narrowing between him and the others.

how the fuck does nalbandian lose to a wild card entry ????

screwed up a parlay of mine..

# 3 in the world my ass...

Nalby is a fukin headcase.stay away from that clown..He's lost to some real stiffs lately:finger:

quite prdictable actually, Fed tried to lose last night but Scrichphan is inept. Fed not up to it and wanted rest for us open.

Railbird said:

quite prdictable actually, Fed tried to lose last night but Scrichphan is inept. Fed not up to it and wanted rest for us open.

Click to expand...

That's the kind of post that has earned you the infamous label of past poster at forums all over cyberspace. The ironic thing is that you do know your stuff and actually do make some good picks before the fact, so why do you insist upon past posting?

John Molson said:

Nalby is a fukin headcase.stay away from that clown..He's lost to some real stiffs lately:finger:

Click to expand...

nalbandian is a fat piece of shit. guy wanted early match at wimbledon
so he could watch world cup soccer. after losing first 2 sets to verdasco, he tanked the 3rd set. cost me big time on a parlay then.


as for federer, i got burned big time. had him large to win cincy.
he said he wasn't tired after beating gasquet in toronto. he lied.
he looked dead today.

doesn't matter. he'll make me the money back by winning the us open.

what a crazy day
federer -2500 fav loses.
clijsters -6000 fav loses ( she quit in 2nd set)

Saw the Kim match, gee i'm pissed, had her on the games line (posted) -7.5 (play now void), there is NO WAY Dubois was going to take 4 games off her in the second set if Kim didn't get hurt--hurt her wrist, started slicing everything, than fell on it!! she looked like she was in agony there and retired

6-1,2-3

Dubois has no chance vs Katarina.......uppy:

Fed didn't look really good here in Toronto, won the title with his 'b' game. Carried over to Cinci and he got burned by a special young talent. Murray is top 5 in the planet in return of serves, IMHO and he's still a teenager

Fed did not want to go to Cincy to begin with. Win comes with an asterisk, Murray got a gift and acted like he accompished something.

have to agree with Rail..espn 2 just showed some of the match and federer didn't look like he didn't care too much.

hey rail: do you fade murray next atch now?

Betit, he never looks like he cares, lol, that's his personna.

Federer DOES NOT tank matches (maybe early part of his career, when he suffered from immaturity).

Poor scheduling by him, his mistake, especially given his game at Toronto, he should have pulled out. 2005 was the first yr he didnt play BOTH Toronto and Cinci (since '03)--he should have done the same thing here, guess he couldn't say 'no' to organizers, which surprises me cause he did a great job with his schedule last yr

same result as in 2004--he won Toronto, lost to Hrbaty in the first round at Cinci. My guess is he WONT play both in 2007uppy:

got it Hope, thanks for the heads up.

man.he did not look like he gave a hoot...definetly a let down spot

do you think murray has a let down?

Betit, my 2-cents:

Murray's main problem is fitness (so far in the early part of his career,something he can obviously work on), this factor becomes more critical in majors (best-of-five). However, he has played a LOT of tennis of late and here in Toronto it showed at the end of his run--his serving just got worse and worse, absolutely dreadful Vs Jarko, someone won. Gasquet easily dispatched him the following day. here in Cinci, his serving wows continue. First round marathon win over Henman (lost serve 3 times on Tues), back on the courts today, Fed breaks him 5 times and he's back at it tomm. These Tennis Masters Series events are really crazy, so much tennis these players are being asked to play and its back-to-back days--to have TWO TMS evenst BACK TO BACk is absolutely insane (as we saw with fed today, who had nothing today)

remember this will be Murray's 3rd straight tounrney as he played in the SEARING HEAT at Wash and made the final, then the greuling test at Toronto (lost in the semi's). He's only 150 lbs at 6'1--TO HIS credit tho, he will have the inspirational Brad Gilbert pushing him to the end. This would be one hell of a run if the kid can continue

the kid has American Ginepri tomm in the 3rd round. Ginepri has good vibes here in Cinci, made it to the semi's a yr ago. He beat a TIRED Tursunov today. Ginepri is an agressive player who will attack Andy. He's certainly the fresher of the two tomm.

note here is what Federer said after his loss today:

"Two Masters series back-to-back -- 12 matches in 13 days -- it's something of the impossible," he said.

The ATP HAS to change Toronto and Cinci, can't have them back-to-back, CANNOT.

hope this helps in your decision tomm

doug stewart said:

That's the kind of post that has earned you the infamous label of past poster at forums all over cyberspace. The ironic thing is that you do know your stuff and actually do make some good picks before the fact, so why do you insist upon past posting?

Click to expand...

I didnt say I bet Murray, I said it was very predictable which it was. Why didnt I bet Murray? Becasue it wasnt on the board when I went to bed, and it was off by the time I woke up.

With that being said, I am taking Ginepri.
Thanks Hope