Madrid king Murray muscles into elite

Andy Murray muscled further into the ranks of the tennis elite today when he lifted his second major title in three months by winning the Madrid Masters with a 6-4 7-6 (8-6) victory over France’s Gilles Simon.

The victory in just over 90 minutes turned on the big serve of the fourth seeded Scot, who fired 10 aces and made him the first British player to win four ATP titles in the same season.

His Madrid success came just three months after he won the first Masters shield of his career at Cincinnati. He also claimed the 2008 titles in Doha and Marseille.

Despite living in Spain as a teenager for more than a year Murray had to apologise to the crowd: “I was here but I never learned proper Spanish. I promise that if I have to stand up here next year, I’ll make the victory speech in Spanish.”

The fourth seed, who has already booked his place in the season-ending Masters Cup in Shanghai next month, gave encouragement to Simon, who stands provisional ninth in the race for the last four spots in the eight-man field.

“Gilles had an incredible week, saving match points six times in two matches,” Murray said.

After both men knocked out Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal respectively in dramatic semi-finals, the title match-up was short on major drama.

Murray made the opening move in the fifth game of the first set as he put Simon under heavy pressure with three break points.

The agile Frenchman saved the first two but not the third as he reached for an overhead backhand, which put Murray into position to force an error and earn the 3-2 break.

The margin was enough for Murray to ease through as the Scot wrapped up the opening set in 34 minutes on his third ace.

The second set turned into relentless battering from the baseline, with the occasional big serve to spice things up.

Simon took charge in the tiebreaker, but Murray saved two set points.

The Scot then earned a match point and finished off victory when Simon missed on a volley at the net.

“Congratulations to Andy,” said the gritty French finalist, who has beaten Nadal, Federer and Novak Djokovic at various times this season.

“It was exciting to play here and you can be sure I will be back.”

Murray admitted that the 2009 transformation of the indoor event into an outdoor spectacular on clay for men and women might limit his future title chances at a new venue in the city.

“I’m not much of a clay-court player so I’m not sure if I will be up here again,” he confessed. “I will certainly make it my business to try and improve.

Murray will play next week in St Petersburg in the defence of his 2007 title while Simon plays in Lyon.

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© 2008 AFP