Andy Murray beats Verdasco but suffers agonising exit

Published on Thursday 26 November 2009 23:00

A MATCH which Andy Murray said was probably the longest three-setter he had ever played ended in victory for the Scot yesterday afternoon, but it was not enough for him to advance to the semi-finals of the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals in London.

• Despite a thrilling win, the outcome for Andy Murray last night was a frustrating one. Picture: Getty Images

Murray beat Spain's Fernando Verdasco 6-4, 6-7, 7-6, but the late match between the other two players in Group A, Roger Federer and Juan Martin del Potro, did not go his way.

Del Potro's 6-2, 6-7, 6-3 victory over Federer squeezed Murray out of a place in the last four by the narrowest of margins, all three players having finished the group tied on two wins out of three and on sets won and lost.

After the Scot's afternoon victory, the only scenario that could have edged Murray out last night was a Del Potro win in three sets, and that's exactly what transpired. The result meant calculators were needed to determine the identity of the two semi-finalists on percentage of games won.

It all came down to one game, with Federer winning the group and Del Potro pipping Murray courtesy of his 45 games won to 43 lost, while the Scot's record read 44-43. Had Del Potro lost just one more game to Federer last night, Murray would have gone through at the Argentine's expense.

• MATCH REPORT

The deciding set went with serve until 4-3, with Del Potro needing to break to keep alive his chances of advancing. He did just that, going up 0-40 before converting his second break point when Federer put a forehand wide. He then closed out the match with a second-serve ace.

Murray's match was a thriller and the victory left him confident that he would be lining up in the last four tomorrow. "I thought it was an unbelievable match," said Murray immediately after beating Verdasco. "It's probably the longest three-set match I've ever played. And I'm still not definitely in the semi-finals, so it would kill me if I didn't get through."

Murray had known before his afternoon match that a straight-sets win would guarantee him a place in tomorrow's semis whatever happened between the Wimbledon and US Open champions but decided not to let that affect the way in which he played against Verdasco.

"It was tough," Murray said. "But I needed to win the match. I mean, I had to focus on that. I knew if I won the match, then, you know, there was only one way that I couldn't go through, and that was if Del Potro won in three sets. Then it would go down to the games because all of us would have the same sets. So I just had to focus on winning."

Murray played very well in yesterday's first set, less well in the second. On the whole, though, he was pleased that his serve had been better than against Federer, and happier with the standard of play compared to his opening encounter with Del Potro.

"I was striking the ball the best I had done today. You know, I didn't make many errors, hit quite a lot of winners, too. Served a lot of aces.

"The first match was up and down. The match against Federer I was disappointed with. And today, obviously I'm happy to come through, but I didn't think that I played a poor match at all."