Federer loses out to Murray in Toronto

Federer was at full stretch but fell to defending champion Andy Murray in the final Keystone

Switzerland’s tennis star Roger Federer suffered a straight sets defeat at the hands of Britain’s Andy Murray on Sunday in the final of the Rogers Cup in Toronto.

Murray, who won the tournament last year, beat Federer 7-5, 7-5 in a warm-up for the United States Open in New York which opens on August 30.

The pair last met in the Australian Open final which resulted in an easy win for the Swiss that gave him 16 grand slam titles.

Rain delayed the start of the match by 15 minutes and when play began, Murray broke Federer’s serve twice in the first ten minutes.

“I thought he played well,” Federer said. “He wasn’t giving me much and he clutch-served at the very end when he had to. He deserved the victory.”

Federer’s last action before Toronto was his quarterfinal loss at Wimbledon. He has recently been working with US coach Paul Annacone, commenting that he “would love to win another ten Wimbledon, another five French Opens, an Olympic Gold in London and whatever – you name it”.

On Saturday, Federer beat Novak Djokovic in the semifinal and leap-frogged over the Serb to take second position in the overall ATP rankings.

Murray said that probably the most pleasing aspect of the tournament was that he had managed to beat both world number one Rafael Nadal and Federer.

“And I didn’t drop a set against either of them , so it’s good for the confidence for the next few weeks.”

swissinfo.ch and agencies