Jamie targets second major mixed doubles title

Published on Wednesday 3 September 2008 23:36

THE day after his younger brother's finest moment, Jamie Murray will go all out for victory after reaching the final of the mixed doubles with Liezel Huber at the US Open.

The 22-year-old Scot and his American partner will face the fifth seeds Zimbabwe's Cara Black and Leander Paes of India in the final in New York today after claiming a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Jill Craybas and Eric Butorac. Murray and Huber reached the last four at Flushing Meadows 12 months ago and he will be looking for his second Grand Slam title after winning the Wimbledon title with Jelena Jankovic last year. Murray said: "We played a solid match and came through it well.

"We were the last match scheduled for Louis Armstrong court and we got switched to court seven at quite short notice because the matches were going very slow. That was a little disappointing because it's a lot of fun to play on the big show courts in front of a big crowd.

"We made the semis here last year and it's good to go one better but we will be looking for another win in the final."

The clash between Huber and Black is an intriguing one as they are teaming up together in the women's doubles event and reached the semi-finals last night when they defeated the Chinese pair of Zi Yan and Jie Zheng.

Experienced Indian doubles specialist Paes is also on form and has made the men's doubles final with Czech partner Lukas Dlouhy after defeating Argentines Maximo Gonzalez and Juan Monaco 6-2, 6-0 in the semi-finals.

In the boys singles, there was a first-round victory on Tuesday for Dan Smethurst (Gbr), who came back to see off American Evan King 1-6, 7-5, 7-5, while Daniel Cox progressed to the third round with a thumping 6-0, 6-1 win over Alessandro Giannessi of Italy.

Britons Marcus Willis, who had beaten Dane Propoggia of Australia 6-0, 6-2 in the first round, lost 3-6 7-5 6-4 to French sixth seed Guillaume Rufin last night. Heather Watson bowed out of the girls singles in round two, losing 6-4, 6-4 to Noppawan Lertcheewakarn of Thailand.

Daniel Cox and Willis's conqueror Propoggia beat Takanyi Garanganga of Zimbabwe and Karim-Mohamed Maamoun of Egypt 6-3, 6-3 in the boys doubles second round.