Andy Murray’s poor finish to the season continued with a fourth defeat in five matches despite a marathon effort against Tomas Martin Etcheverry in Basel.
British number three Murray had snapped a three-match losing streak with a hard-fought victory over Yannick Hanfmann on Monday and claimed the first set of this last-16 tie at the Swiss Indoors.
Etcheverry, ranked eight places above Murray in 32nd, was able to fight back impressively and it was the Argentinian who prevailed 6-7 (5) 6-3 6-2 after a three-hour-and-eight-minute battle.
The early exchanges of set one proved an insight into what was in store for an excitable crowd at the ATP 500 event with breaks traded by both players.
After Murray was broken in his first service game, he responded with a superb lob for break point before a volley at the net got the tie back on serve at 2-2.
A tie-break was eventually required and a classy drop shot helped three-time grand-slam champion Murray draw first blood.
The 84-minute set appeared to take its toll on Murray at the beginning of the second with Etcheverry able to establish an early advantage and he saved four break points in a lengthy seventh game on his way to forcing a decider.
Murray was struggling physically by this point and a racket felt the force of his anger despite the Swiss crowd cheering him on.
Etcheverry was in the ascendancy now though and set up match point with a superb passing stroke before a service winner sent him through to the last eight.
Elsewhere, Cameron Norrie had no answer to world number 10 Alexander Zverev in the second round of the Erste Bank Open in Vienna.
Zverev had won the first three meetings between the top-20 players and claimed a fourth in a row with an emphatic 6-2 6-4 victory.
A superb backhand winner down the line earned Zverev a break in Norrie’s first service game and the British number one was broken again before losing the first set in 36 minutes.
Norrie tried to wrestle his way back into the contest, but was broken again in the third game of the second set.
It remained on serve until Norrie forced two break opportunities when Zverev was serving for the match and yet the German responded by winning four consecutive points to close out a solid win, which makes it four defeats in five for last year’s Wimbledon semi-finalist.
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