Andy Murray’s return to the Citi Open sure resulted in a short stay.
Seeded No. 1 and appearing at the hard-court tuneup for the US Open for the first time in nearly a decade, the two-time major champion bowed out in his opening match with a 6-4, 4-6, 7-6 (7/4) loss to world No. 53 Teymuraz Gabashvili of Russia on Wednesday.
Murray had his chances against Gabashvili, who was limping between points on a bad left leg.
Photo: USA Today
The Scot broke for a 5-4 lead in the third set and served for the victory, but he got broken right back, sailing a backhand long to make it 5-5.
“Obviously, disappointed not to close it out in the third set when I had a chance to do that,” said Murray, the first top seeded man to lose his opening match in Washington since Ivan Lendl in 1993. “There’s things I feel I could have done better.”
In the tiebreaker, the world No. 3 Murray went ahead 4-3. From there, though, he would not take another point, dropping the final four against Gabashvili, who has never won an ATP Tour title and went into the match with a 9-13 record this year.
Gabashvili said he earned the nickname “Tsunami” in the past, because he would “play one match great, but then I could lose to anyone.”
“When you win 7-6 in the third against Andy Murray, it’s something special,” said Gabashvili, who had won only three of 25 previous matches against top-10 opponents and called Wednesday’s victory the “100 percent” most important of his career.
Murray, who received a first-round bye, was playing his first match of the North American hard-court circuit — and in his first tournament since reaching the semi-finals at Wimbledon last month.
“It’s obviously a disappointing match to lose, but it’s not like I got blown off the court,” Murray said.
The Scot was the runner-up in Washington in 2006 and had not been back since. This time, he trailed 4-1 at the start against Gabashvili, got back on serve, but then was broken to end the first set.
On Gabashvili’s third set point, he produced a down-the-line backhand winner to cap a 14-stroke exchange, then pounded his chest with his right fist twice, while shouting “Come on.”
Although Murray climbed back into the match in the second set, he was hardly at his best in the third and his serve did not get him out of trouble in the tiebreaker.
Earlier John Isner of the US hit 17 aces, won 37 of 40 first-serve points and moved into the third round by beating Victor Estrella Burgos of the Dominican Republic 6-3, 7-6 (7/5).
The eighth seed never faced a break point, powering serves that regularly topped 210kph.
Over and over, Isner would smack a high-bouncing serve that rose out of reach for Estrella Burgos.
“When I’m playing players that are significantly shorter than me, like my opponent out there tonight, it helps,” Isner said. “I hit a few serves that went into the fourth row of the stands.”
In other men’s singles matches, seventh seed Feliciano Lopez ended Lleyton Hewitt’s last appearance at the Citi Open with a 4-6, 7-5, 6-3 victory.
Next up for Lopez was a match against Sam Groth, who eliminated ninth seed Viktor Troicki 6-3, 6-4.
Unseeded Steve Johnson of the US defeated 11th seed Bernard Tomic 6-7 (7/9), 6-4, 6-2. Other winners included 2012 champion Alexandr Dolgopolov, Richard Gasquet, Grigor Dimitrov and Alexander Zverev.
In the women’s singles, defending champion Svetlana Kuznetsova withdrew, citing an injury to her lower left leg, which allowed Sloane Stephens to move into the quarter-finals.
In the women’s doubles, Taiwan’s Hsu Chieh-yu and Hiroko Kuwata of Japan crashed out of the first round in a 7-5, 5-7, 10-5 loss to US duo Sanaz Marand and Taylor Townsend.
Additional reporting by Staff writer
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