Andy Murray lost
at the Paris Masters overnight and joined rival Novak Djokovic on the list of
big names to exit the tournament early.
Murray, ranked
third at the event, lost to 21-year-old Polish qualifier Jerzy Janowicz 5-7
7-6(7-4) 6-2 in just under two and a half hours.
The towering 6ft
8ins Janowicz produced 22 aces and 51 winners in their showdown to score what
was undoubtedly the biggest win of his career.
“This was the most
unbelievable day in my life. I beat Olympic champion, US Open champion. I beat
Andy Murray,” Janowicz said. It’s an unbelievable feeling for me. I fell like
in a few minutes I’m going to wake up and it’s gonna be gone.”
The loss adds to
Murray’s disappointing performance at the Paris event, having never progressed
beyond the quarterfinal stage in seven attempts.
He will now head
to London for the ATP Tour Finals next week but said after the match that he
was unsure of how the early exits of both himself and Djokovic would affect
their showings at the final event.
“Only time will
tell really. A lot of players will have had slight different run-ins to the O2,”
the 25-year-old Scot said.
“Obviously me and
Novak lost early this week; Roger didn’t play, and then I think the rest of the
guys are still in here. You never know, maybe the guys that go deep here
they’ll have confidence from having a good tournament. But they may arrive a
little bit later and might take a while to get used to the conditions.”
Meanwhile, Juan
Martin del Potro also had a shock third round exit at the tournament losing to
France’s Michael Llodra 6-4 6-3. The loss ended an 11-match winning streak for
the Argentine who had just come off back-to-back victories in Vienna and Basel.
He will now also head to London early to prepare.
Other results
included a win for Jo-Wilfried Tsonga who beat Nicolas Almagro 7-6 7-6 to book
his place at the World Finals next week. His win also meant that Janko Tipsarevic
will now take the last remaining spot in the eight man event.
