Murray wins first Masters series title
One point away from his first Masters series championship, Andy Murray let the moment get to him.
Britain’s top player 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) win over Serbia’s Novak Djokovic for the Cincinnati Masters title.
Murray’s 2-hour, 22-minute victory ended a $2.6 million ATP Western & Southern Financial Group Masters that will be remembered more for what it did to the world rankings.
Rafael Nadal lost to Djokovic in the semifinals, but earned enough rankings points during the week to 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.
•Russia’s Dinara Safina won her second straight tournament, defeating Dominika Cibulkova 6-2, 6-1 to win the Rogers Cup in Montreal and improve her record since May to 27-3.
Safina is expected to move from eighth to a career-high seventh in the world rankings.
•Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki routed Russian Vera Dushevina 6-0, 6-2 to win the Nordic Light Open in Stockholm, Sweden, for her first WTA title.
MISCELLANY
No. 6 pair wins
Sixth-seeded Matt Fuerbringer and Casey Jennings defended their AVP Crocs Slam San Diego title, defeating No. 1 seed Nick Lucena and Sean Scott, 19-21, 21-17, 15-11.
On the women’s side, Tyra Turner won her first AVP Crocs Tour event when she and Rachel Wacholder (seeded fifth) beat second-seeded Annett Davis and Jenny Johnson Jordan, 21-16, 19-21, 15-10.
•A lightning bolt struck 91 auto racing fans at a racetrack in Oslo, Norway, and 45 people were taken to hospital with minor burns, police said.
The lightning hit a hill where spectators at the rallycross were sitting. Rallycross is a form of sprint-style automobile racing on a closed circuit.
The race, a national championship, was called off after the incident.