ANDY MURRAY crashed out of the Qatar Open as Roberto Bautista Agut strolled to a 6-0 6-1 win in Doha.
The two former Qatar champions last met at the Australian Open in 2019, when Bautista Agut claimed a marathon five-set victory.
But that was the Spaniard's only victory in four matches against Murray and the former British No1 had appeared to be gaining in confidence during his first-round victory over Taro Daniel in Doha.
That confidence quickly drained away, however, after Murray lost the first point on a backhand error.
A couple of wild groundstrokes from the three-time Grand Slam winner also set the tone for a one-sided first set as the world No16 Bautista Agut imposed his will on the contest.
Bautista Agut did not lose a point on Murray's opening service game and broke twice more to complete a first-set whitewash.
Murray finally held serve to make it 1-1 at the start of the second set but the Spaniard remained in control.
Bautista Agut pinned Murray back behind the baseline with the depth of his shots to dominate the extended rallies.
With Murray unable to dent Bautista Agut's serve, the fourth game of the second set was to prove crucial.
Murray found a succession of first serves to lead 40-0, but Bautista Agut took advantage of a couple of loose forehands to level and then fired a volleyed winner after setting up a first break point.
The Scot's frustration grew in the final game as he smacked his racket against the court after Bautista Agut delivered an ace to get back to 30-30 after being 0-30 down.
Another ace set up match point and Murray then missed a forehand wide to confirm one of the heaviest defeats of his career.
Fifth seed Dan Evans also went out at the round-of-16 stage as Alejandro Davidovich Fokina claimed a 4-6 7-5 6-4 victory.
The British number one had beaten world No47 Davidovich Fokina - 19 places below Evans in the rankings - in their only previous ATP tour meeting in Stockholm last year.
After two closely-fought sets, the Spaniard's first three service games in the final set all went to deuce but Evans was unable to take advantage.
Evans then saw a 40-30 lead slip in the 10th game as Davidovich Fokina set up an all-Spanish quarter-final with Bautista Agut.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel