Murray has Cincinnati in his sights

Published on Monday 17 August 2009 22:28

ANDY Murray insists that he will definitely be fit to defend his Cincinnati Masters title this week.

Murray enjoyed a fantastic week in Montreal, winning the Rogers Cup with a come-from-behind victory over Juan Martin Del Potro in the final while also overtaking Rafael Nadal to become world No2, but there was some concern that Murray would not be able to take part this week after he was seen clutching his hip during the presentation ceremony.

However, the Scot claims he will have no problems in taking to the courts.

"I'm stiff, I think," he said. "It was a pretty intense match and first tournament on hard courts for so long. The hard courts are the most brutal on your body. I'm just a little bit stiff now. I plan on going to Cincinnati tomorrow to try to defend my title."

Murray's triumph in Cincinnati last year set him up perfectly for the US Open and his best-ever performance in a grand slam event to date, reaching the final only to lose to world No1 Roger Federer.

The 22-year-old is hoping for a repeat performance this week and insists his mind is not on Flushing Meadows, where he will be hoping to go one better this time around. "Obviously to win this tournament is great," he added. "The US Open is still a couple of weeks away so I'll focus on Cincinnati and try and play well again there."

Murray admits breaking the duopoly of Federer and Nadal means more to him than his Montreal victory.

"I love winning tournaments," said Murray. "It's great. Every player will tell you the same thing. But I've never been to No2 in the world before. It's something that I've never done. That's obviously new to me. I'll enjoy that feeling for the next couple of days."

Murray fought back brilliantly on Sunday to beat Del Potro after the big-hitting Argentine took the first set on a tie-break.

The man from Dunblane recovered from dropping his first set of the week to take the match 6-7 (4-7), 7-6 (7-3), 6-1. And Murray feels his experience shone through after Del Potro, playing in his first Masters final, started to flag.

"The thing that's tough with him, because of his height, he's obviously got a big serve," said Murray.

"He hits the ball so clean from the back of the court that he makes it very, very tough for you and you end up doing quite a lot of running.

"He obviously was tired (in the third set), and I just made a lot of returns which I hadn't really been doing. His serve slowed down a little bit, and I made more returns. I served well at the beginning of the third set to make sure I stayed ahead, and that was really the only difference."

Meanwhile, Murray may discover that, like Mount Everest, the final push to the summit can end in disappointment.

While 24 have held the top spot since rankings began in 1973, 11 have fallen just short of the mark, including some hallowed names in the game. Among the nearly-theres are grand slam winners Guillermo Vilas, of Argentina, and Americans Arthur Ashe and Michael Chang. Croatian Goran Ivanisevic and Czech Petr Korda are also in the runners-up club.

If Murray needs any more reminding, he need look no further than his own camp. Alex Corretja, now a member of the Scot's coaching staff, held the second ranking in 1999 but just could not reel in the 14-times grand slam champion Pete Sampras.

"I was fighting so hard to reach No1 and I couldn't," said Corretja. "The big difference between Andy and me, he's No2, but he still has a lot of room for improvement, so that means, hopefully, he will get to No1 one day."

&#149 Ivo Karlovic banged down 21 aces as he upset 13th seed Gael Monfils 6-4, 6-7, 7-6 in the first round of the Cincinnati Masters yesterday.

Gilles Simon and Marin Cilic also progressed at the expense of American wildcard Wayne Odesnik and former world No 1 Juan Carlos Ferrero respectively.