Murray and Mirnyi crash in Hamburg

Published on Tuesday 13 May 2008 23:09

JAMIE Murray and Max Mirnyi wasted a strong start to crash out of the Hamburg Masters doubles at the first hurdle yesterday.

The Scot and his Belarussian playing partner required just a single break of serve to take the opening set 7-5 against Michael Llodra and Julien Benneteau.

French duo Llodra and Benneteau – ranked 13th and 32nd in the ATP's doubles rankings, respectively – hit back strongly, however, to break their opponents three times and claim the second 6-3. And they carried that form into the decisive tie-break, winning 10-7 to seal a second-round meeting with Jonas Bjorkman and Kevin Ullyett.

Nikolay Davydenko and David Ferrer moved smartly into the third round of the singles, while Tommy Robredo came back from the brink to win a first-round thriller against Philipp Kohlschreiber.

Davydenko, the Russian fourth seed, helped himself to a 6-4, 6-1 victory over Croatia's Ivan Ljubicic, while Spain's Ferrer, seeded fifth, was equally impressive in a 6-3, 6-3 win over Ivo Minar of the Czech Republic. Robredo, who had the best win of his career when he took the title in Hamburg in 2006, lost the first set and was two points away from defeat when he fell a break down in the second-set tie-break.

The Spaniard recovered, thanks to a couple of poor serves from German hope Kohlschreiber, and held his nerve at the end of the decider to take his third match point and win 2-6, 7-6, 6-3.