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Murray Falls, Soderling Fights Off Dodig


Andy Murray cannot seem to shake off the disappointment of his second straight loss in the Australian Open final.  For the second tournament in a row, Murray was defeated by a qualifier.  In the third round at the Sony Ericsson Open, Alex Bogomolov sent Murray packing 6-1,7-5.

The first set Bogomolov could do no wrong while Murray had trouble finding his rhythm.  Although Murray tried his best to snap out of his funk and battled in the second set, Bogomolov found the answers to vanquish the three time majors finalist.

After the match, Murray was asked whether “a confidence problem is plaguing you right now?  Murray answered:  “No, I think it’s more than that.  I mean, I played poorly last two weeks.  I was happier with the way that I competed this week than last.  But, yeah, confidence could have something to do with that.”

Further Murray stated “ the same thing happened around, the same time last year.  I have been practicing well, training well, and then [in] the matches can’t get anything going. That’s obviously disappointing. . . But I think when you’re not playing that well and you’re struggling a little bit, you start to miss balls by a few inches, then, net cords or whatever, challenges and stuff, they seem to go against you more”.

With all that has transpired the last few months, Murray appears in need of a good coach to place him back on the right path.  To a question along these lines, Murray responded “whether I get someone or not . . . it wouldn’t be down to the last two matches, because as a whole, you need to assess things properly.  It’s not anyone’s fault for giving me wrong tactics or practicing the wrong way.  That’s not the reason why I played like I did . . .  I’ll have to think about it and see what I want to do”.

Bogomolov has been playing well of late.  He attributes this victory to his previous results which have been great.  As such, Bogomolov feels it “ really [gives] you confidence and [permits] you to play the bigger points better.  Once you’re in that state, you believe you can do certain things that you weren’t able to do before”.

Robin Soderling got out of a tight spot.  After dropping the first set, Soderling rebounded to defeat Ivan Dodig 3-6,6-2,6-4.  In the third round, Soderling will meet either Juan Martin Del Potro or Philipp Kohlschreiber.  Kohlschreiber stunned Soderling in the third round at Indian Wells.

On the comeback trail, James Blake continues to make great strides.  Blake took out 27th seed Thomaz Bellucci 2-6,6-4,7-6.  Blake will face either sizzling Novak Djokovic or Denis Istomin in the third round.

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