Andy Murray wins first Masters championship
NEWSWIRE
He defeats Novak Djokovic, 7-6 (4), 7-6 (5) in the final at Cincinnati.
One point away from his first Masters series championship, Andy Murray let the moment get to him.
Murray, seeded eighth, wasted four match points with an uncharacteristic show of sloppiness in the second set.
Forced to play another tiebreaker, he pulled off the best shot of the game -- an in-the-corner backhand -- that set up a 7-6 (4), 7-6 (5) victory over third-seeded Novak Djokovic for the Cincinnati Masters title.
"It's huge to win your first sort of major tournament, and to do it in a match like today makes it more special," Murray said. "I put in a lot of work off the court to be able to win these sorts of tournaments, and it makes it all worthwhile."
Murray's 2-hour 22-minute win ended a $2.6-million ATP Masters tournament that will be remembered more for what it did to the world rankings.
Rafael Nadal lost to Djokovic in the semifinals but piled up enough rankings points during the week to finally wrest the No. 1 spot from Roger Federer in two weeks.
Federer has led the rankings since Feb. 2, 2004, with Nadal right behind him for the last three years.
Seventh-seeded Dinara Safina defeated 19-year-old Dominika Cibulkova, 6-2, 6-1, to win the Rogers Cup at Montreal.
It was the second title in a row for Safina, who beat Flavia Pennetta in the final of the East West Bank Classic in Carson the previous week.
HORSE RACING
Big Brown wins Haskell
Big Brown barely bounced back from his last-place finish in the Belmont Stakes with a victory in the $1-million Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park in New Jersey.
The win was in doubt until the final strides, when Big Brown finished with a flourish under Kent Desormeaux and beat 20-1 longshot Coal Play by 1 3/4 lengths in front of a cheering 45,132.
The 1 1/8 -mile Haskell was Big Brown's first race since his Belmont flop ended the colt's quest to become the first Triple Crown champion since Affirmed in 1978.
Big Brown, the winner of the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, never had to rally in the stretch before. The 3-year-old colt won his first five starts by a combined 39 lengths before losing in the Belmont 57 days ago, when he was pulled up with a quarter-mile to go.
Black Mamba defeated I Can See by half a length to win the $400,000 John C. Mabee Handicap at Del Mar. Ridden by Garrett Gomez, Black Mamba ran 1 1/8 miles on the turf in 1:47.11 and paid $3.80, $3 and $2.40 as the odds-on favorite.
