Novak Djokovic could not take back the No. 1 ranking in the world from Andy Murray at last season’s World Tour Finals. He at least managed to end Murray’s 28-match winning streak on Sunday in Doha.
Djokovic triumphed at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open, beating Murray 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 in a dramatic, back-and-forth final that lasted two hours and 54 minutes.
One day after the second-ranked Serb saved five match points–including a quadruple match point situation–against Fernando Verdasco, it was his turn to squander a second-set advantage. Djokovic could not convert any of three match points when they would have given him a relatively routine 6-3, 6-4 victory. Instead, Murray stormed back from the brink of defeat to force a decider by breaking his opponent twice in succession. But one break in the third was enough for Djokovic, who struck at 3-3 and took care of his next two service games to cross the finish line.
“Best scenario I could ask for at the beginning of the season,” the No. 2 seed remarked, “playing all five matches in this tournament and then three hours against No. 1 of the world, biggest rival, and winning in a thrilling marathon match. It was a really, really thrilling performance from both of us. Just a great way to start the year.”
“Obviously disappointed not to win tonight, but I played pretty good the last couple of matches,” Murray commented. “I think physically it was a good test to start the year.”
Highlights:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEpdXXAFvYw
Trophy ceremony:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKGVdGV-opU
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Good start.
yup
Didn’t get to watch it but 17 minute high-light reel on youtube was great….could be another thrilling year for the ATP Tour!
I expected Novak to win. Murray did not look good enough to beat Nole although did put up a good fight!
Very encouraging start for slumping Novak!
Kyrgios commented that he would be banned till 2025 if he behaved like Nole – hitting the lady in the stands in one of his angry outbursts in the final…guess Nick is right..he would have been…
Murray played with wrong strategy vs Djoko in set one. He had already spent so much time and efforts in the earlier rounds, why waste energy engaging in long rallies vs Djoko in set one? It’s after he lost set one then he started changing up and approached the net more often, winning majority of those points.
The problem with Murray was that he’s rather unwilling to move out of his comfort zone; it’s only when his back was against the wall then he started making changes, not unlike Rafa. Many times, they made the moves too late.
I am not going to read too much into this win. I don’t think it will have any bearing on the AO. But I also think that Novak needed this win to try to right the ship and give himself some good feelings heading into the first slam of the year.
As far as Murrat’s strategy in that final, it’s easy to second guess after the fact. It’s not like a player can always impose himself when playing Novak. It’s usually a battle between him and his opponent when it comes to being aggressive. Rafa had the same problem when playing Novak and had to work in changing some of his shot patterns to try and be more effective.
Murray was able to raise his level of play in the latter half of the second set. He started hitting his forehand a lot better and that gave him chances to move into the net to hit done great volleys for winners. Murray also was able to take advantage of a Novak who seemed to be a bit rattled when he smashed his racket at a very inopportune time and was penalized a point, losing his serve.
Novak hadn’t been as strong mentally and that is something that I think Murray exploited.
It was one bad game from Murray in the third set that decided the match. But he did make the match competitive and forced a third set. I do not think this loss will affect Murray as he heads into the AO. Novak and Murray are the obvious co-favorites for the AO.
Djoko clearly not playing that well at Doha, so If Murray wanted to win, he should’ve played like he did at WTF. Instead, he went into long rallies with Djoko, as if trying to prove he’s better than Djoko from the baseline. To me that’s stupidity. It’s not like Murray had not played an aggressive match and beat Djoko before (WTF), so why gone back to being passive?
A Djoko who came out all guns blazing (like Doha final in 2016 vs Rafa; or SF and F of AO2016 vs Fed and Murray) would certainly be hard to contain or counter, but Djoko wasn’t even playing like that from point one!
There’s one thing I dislike about Murray and it seems that he still doesn’t change that after becoming no.1, and that is, he’s always wasting time and energy playing cat and mouse game in the early rounds, when he could easily finish his opponents off in shorter time. As a result, when he needs to go the distance playing against Djoko, he would come out short. Djoko has been winning all but two of their long matches.
To me, it’s an indication that while Murray has greatly improved, WTF win over Nole was somewhat of a blip when Nole was still far from his best especially in that match. You could see that he was emotionally divested.
Had Murray won his second straight win over Nole, it would have been a real statement to set up Australia.
Now, should they meet in the AO final, I’d comfortably pick Nole.
But we gotta wait for the draw…
I still think that Novak is not mentally as strong yet. I think this win will give Novak a boost, but the outcome of the AO will not depend on this result. Results in warmup events to slams do not necessarily indicate what will happen.
Even if Murray pulled out this win, I would feel the same way. It’s different playing in a 250 tournament in a best of three set match as opposed to a slam with best of five set matches.
I don’t think that either guy was at their best in this match. I am not going to make the mistake of reading too much into it.
The draw will definitely tell us more.