Andy Murray was left to rue a succession of missed opportunities yesterday as his outstanding chance of notching a third ATP Tour title of the year evaporated under the Dubai sun in the face of a determined rearguard action by his quarter-final opponent, Nikolay Davydenko.
Murray was widely expected to extend his successful personal rivalry with Davydenko - he had won their three most recent meetings - but this time the Russian had other ideas and capitalised on the fact that he had enjoyed an untroubled passage into the last eight while Murray battled through six intense sets to overcome the world No.1, Roger Federer, and Spain's Fernando Verdasco.
Despite a flourish which brought the British No.1 the opening three games of the second set, he always appeared to be swimming against the tidal wave of powerful drives from the never-say-die Davydenko and eventually perished 7-5, 6-4 in 1hr 44min.
Davydenko, who began to find both range and penetration, responded splendidly to the question Murray asked of him by rattling off the next five games to secure his third straight sets win of the week.
"Once he starts to get comfortable from the baseline, he's really tough to beat," said Murray, lamenting the loss of a golden opportunity to have faced the unseeded Feliciano Lopez in today's semi-finals rather than world No.4 David Ferrer.
"I had a lot of chances," said Murray. "For me the most important one was the second game of the match when I could have broken him. Maybe the momentum might have shifted back in my favour had I got that early break. I think against a top player if you can stamp your authority early and get ahead, you're obviously going to start to relax and they're going to try to up their game. That's where they can start to make mistakes, especially here where the ball flies."
Davydenko had made mistakes before against Murray but was determined on this occasion to eradicate them.
He said: "Murray always plays slowly, trying to wait for his opponent to make mistakes. He wants his opponents to go crazy and lose the match.
"Today in the second set he tried to play aggressively, but only for three games. After that he played slowly. After he'd won those first three games I just tried to do what I was doing in the first set. Tennis is all about what you have in your head. If you're crazy you can lose a match. If you can concentrate you can beat everyone."
Murray refused to be downhearted at the end of his debut week in Dubai - a change of schedule from his previously successful policy of travelling across the Atlantic and winning the tournament in San Jose two years in a row.
"It's been a good week for me," he said. "I am not terribly disappointed with the week as a whole. I beat the world No.1 here so I am not going to get too down on it."
Another plus for the Dunblane youngster is that he can fly home to Scotland before setting off for the United States later this month.
"That is definitely one of the advantages of playing in Europe or not too far from Europe," he concluded. "If I was in Vegas the last thing I would have wanted to fly all the way home and then back out again to the States. I'm happy because I can spend a decent amount of time at home."
The clash of the day followed the Murray match and it resulted in the American, Andy Roddick, serve his way to a stunning 7-6, 6-2 victory over the second seed Rafael Nadal, the only man to deprive Federer of this title in the last five years.
Later, Roddick confirmed that he has split from his coach Jimmy Connors by mutual agreement. "I think it was tough for him to do it part-time and maybe not getting exactly the results we wanted," Roddick said. "I have so much respect for him as a person. I'm sad, but I'm thankful for what he was able to give to me."
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