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Qatar Open Kick-Off Looks Good For Murray

Andy Murray at the Qatar Open - Doha News

Things are heating up for Andy Murray at the first round of the Qatar Open.

Andy Murray has extended his career-best with winning streak to 25 consecutives with a straight-set win over Jeremy Chardy at the first round of the Qatar Open this week. The 29-year-old British champion and world number one beat the Frenchman 6-0 7-6 (7-2).

It took Chardy only 20 minutes to lose his first set, but put up a good fight in the second one, taking it to a tie-break.

In the upcoming round, Murray will be playing against Gerald Melzer, who beat Paul-Henri Mathieu 6-7 (2-7) 6-3 6-2 in the earlier round.

Murray has not been beaten in over a hundred days,the last time being back in September by the Argentinian Juan Martin del Potro in the Davis Cup. His last tournament defeat was also in September when he lost to Japan’s Kei Nishikori in the quarter-finals of the US Open.

However, towards the end of 2016 Murray not only won every match, he also secured five consecutive titles and snatched the world’s number one sport from champ Novak Djokovic.

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who is playing in Doha for the first time after winning the Qatar Open back in 2012, had a very good start and managed to secure his first set in just 23 minutes. However, it his luck didn’t go through as the Russian Andrey Kuznetsov hit back hard in the second set and broke his serve in the tenth game and took the match in a deciding set. But Tsonga was up for it and emerged stronger than his adversary.

The Qatar Open (also known as the Qatar ExxonMobil Open) is one of the biggest tennis events in the Middle East, and one of only two ATP World Tour events held in the region. Held at the Khalifa International Tennis and Squash complex in West Bay, it started on the second of January and will continue through until the 7th.

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