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Andy Murray was denied a perfect end to his sublime week in Doha as he suffered a straight-sets defeat to Daniil Medvedev in the Qatar Open final on Saturday.
The Russian made it back-to-back tour victories as he followed up success in Rotterdam with a 6-4 6-4 victory for his 17th career ATP title, extending his winning run to 9-0 since the Australian Open in the process.
Murray was, meanwhile, made to wait for a first ATP title since October 2019 having made it to his first Tour final since last June in Stuttgart.
“It was an incredible week, didn’t finish how I wanted but had some amazing matches, created great memories and it was fantastic to be back in the final against an incredible player,” Murray said in his on-court interview on the Amazon Prime broadcast.
“Daniil is one of my favourite players to watch and one of the best on the tour. It’s great for me to get that opportunity to play somebody on that level, some things to work on. I’m proud of my week.”
Medvedev took control of the contest early as two breaks of serve guided him to a 4-1 advantage, before Murray fought back to move within 4-3 only for the third seed to restore his composure to see out the set.
Murray threatened another thriller when he wrestled momentum from Medvedev in the second to lead 4-3, only to relinquish a 40-0 lead at 4-4 in what would prove a defining break for his opponent.
It paved the way for Medvedev to serve out for match, the 27-year-old finishing it in style with a beautifully-weighted lob upon Murray’s approach to the net.
“I’d like to say how much I appreciated it today playing Andy,” said Medvedev in his on-court interview. “Yesterday I was in the gym working out and started to the do the last exercises when it was 5-4 40-0, 25 minutes later he was still on the tie-break and won it, crazy.
“Today when I had a match point I was like ‘oh my god I have a match point against Andy in Doha, that’s not a good sign’, but I had to have a match point to win. I knew it wasn’t over until the last point with him.”
Murray had produced familiar heroics on Friday when he rescued five match points to beat Jiri Lehecka, following on from impressive victories over Alexandre Muller, Alexander Zverev and Lorenzo Sonego earlier in the week.
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