TORONTO – The hits just keep on coming at the Rogers Cup tournament in Toronto.
And on Friday night, another major upset led to the straight-set dismissal of the defending Rogers Cup champion, Novak Djokovic at the hands of Scotsman Andy Murray (6-3, 7-6).
The match really was the tale of two completely different competitors. Murray seemed possessed to win from the start while Djokovic looked sloppy making mistake after mistake and error after error.
Murray managed to break his Serbian opponent in the second game of the first set and this quickly led to him establishing a 3-0 grip.
The fact that Djokovic was making so many miscues, certainly did not bitter the sweetness of Murray’s victory to him as it was the first time he was able to get the better of his good friend and former junior rival in five attempts.
“It was probably my best win,” Murray said after the match.
His success at the beginning of the match clearly had an adverse affect on Djokovic who tried to change his game into more of a net attack to compete. This didn’t work either, although the Serb managed to at least make it close in the third set.
After the match, Djokovic tried to explain his disappointment and pointed primarily at his serve not clicking correctly.
“ In general, I wasn’t really happy with the performance, and especially the serve was not — it was not functioning in my favor in important moments when I really needed to serve it out and try to get out from the dangerous positions.”
As has been the case for most of the losers at this week tournament, Djokovic also blamed the lack of time had to rest as also being a significant factor in his untimely demise.
Obviously as a player who has to travel all the time, you know, and the top players are usually getting to the final stages of the — 90% of the events they play. This was the case with Roger, Rafa, and myself in the last year and a half,” he said. “I had my ups and downs this year maybe more than I’m supposed to have, but it’s not easy. It’s not easy. I have to cope with a lot of things. You have to just try to be consistent as much as you can if you want to stay at the top.”
Murray now goes on to face Rafael Nadal in Saturday’s semifinal.
