Associated Press
Dubai, Feb 26: An out-of-sorts Andy Murray lost in straight sets to Croatian teenager Borna Coric to crash out of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships here Thursday.
Murray hqad thrashed Coric in a Davis Cup singles tie in September 2013 in their only other previous meeting, but was second best throughout the quarterfinal encounter as the 18-year-old Coric won 6-1 6-3 in one hour and 19 minutes.
Murray’s error-strewn display, in which he hit 55 unforced errors, was in stark contrast to the impressive tennis the Scot played on his way to the Australian Open final just three weeks ago.
The two-time Grand Slam winner began steadily enough, holding his serve to take a 1-0 lead, but found himself chasing the set in a matter of minutes as Coric, who beat Rafael Nadal at last year’s Swiss Open, held with ease then converted a second breakpoint against the Scot to move into a 2-1 advantage.
Coric did not drop a point as he held his second service game and extended his lead to 4-1 by converting his fourth breakpoint as Murray struggled to get a foothold in the game. He then held his own serve before breaking Murray for the third time to win the set 6-1.
Murray matched his opponent in the early stages of the second set as it went with serve and drew on all his experience to level to 2-2 as Coric stepped up the pressure. But that was as far as he could go as the Croatian broke him in the sixth game of the set to go ahead 4-2. He wrapped up the match without much fuss.
In another quarterfinal tie, Tomas Berdych, the sixth seed defeated Sergei Stakhvsky 6-3, 4-6, 6-2 in a match that lasted a little over two hours.
