Murrays find their feet in Toronto doubles

Published on Wednesday 23 July 2008 23:36

SCOTLAND'S Andy and Jamie Murray teamed up to reach the second round of the doubles at the Rogers Cup in Toronto with victory over French pair Richard Gasquet and Nicolas Mahut.

The Olympics-bound brothers fought back from an early break in the first set to triumph 7-6 (7/4), 6-2.

The Murrays got off to the worst possible start when they dropped serve in the opening game of the match. But Gasquet and Mahut faltered when serving for the first set at 5-4 and the Murrays broke back to take it on a tie-break.

From there, they never looked back, twice breaking in the second set for an ultimately comfortable victory. They will now face Canada's Daniel Nestor and Serbia's Nenad Zimonjic in round two.

In the singles event, world No3 Novak Djokovic opened the defence of his Toronto Masters title in impressive style with a 6-4, 6-4 win over Canadian Frank Dancevic.

The Australian Open champion was joined in the third round by sixth-seeded American Andy Roddick, who launched his hardcourt campaign earlier in the day with a battling 6-1, 6-7, 6-3 win over Frenchman Nicolas Mahut.

Playing in his first event since a second-round loss to Marat Safin at Wimbledon, Djokovic took a little time to shake off the rust, but soon got into his stride and broke Dancevic to take the opening set.

The 21-year-old Serb recorded an early break in the second to push 4-2 ahead but then wobbled as Dancevic, urged on by a raucous home crowd, staged a late rally by breaking back and holding serve. But Djokovic responded with another break to seal the match in 77 minutes.

"I was aware he had nothing to lose, the big Canadian hope playing in front of his crowd with big support," said Djokovic. "Always the first match is the trickiest one, trying to keep the balance. There were some things that I was not really happy about but it is still only the first match."

Frenchman Gilles Simon, who won at Indianapolis on Sunday, crushed 18-year-old American qualifier Donald Young 6-1, 6-3 to set up a second-round meeting with Roger Federer, a two-time champion on the Canadian hardcourts.

Rafael Nadal, who, like Federer, received a bye into the second round, will meet Jesse Levine after the American qualifier beat Canadian Peter Polansky 6-2, 6-4. Czech 16th seed Tomas Berdych cruised into the second round with a 6-3, 6-1 win over Finland's Jarkko Nieminen.