TENNIS in DEPTH.

Andy Murray crashed out of the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships in the second round.

Murray, playing his first tournament since losing in the Australian Open final to Roger Federer, lost in three sets to Serbia’s Janko Tipsarevic.

Tsonga, the fifth seed, had no answer to Ljubicic who produced 15 aces in a 7-5 6-3 win which set up a meeting with Djokovic

The 22-year-old Scot looked to have overcome losing the first set when he took the second to force a decider, but Tipsarevic raised his game to seal a 7-6 (7/3) 4-6 6-4 victory in two and a half hours on Wednesday.

Tipsarevic claimed an early break of serve in the first set but squandered the chance to serve it out, missing an easy smash to allow Murray to break back and level at 5-5.

Murray then hammered down three aces in the next game to seemingly signal a change in momentum, but world number 39 Tipsarevic commendably held serve to love to force a tie-break.

A superb forehand winner down the line then gave Tipsarevic four set points at 6-2 and an ace two points later – albeit one only confirmed by HawkEye – gave the 25-year-old the upper hand.

That at least served to spark Murray into life and a break of serve in the opening game of the second set was enough for the third seed to take it 6-4 and level the match.

But those expecting Murray to carry that momentum into the decider were in for a rude awakening as Tipsarevic claimed an early break and then saved five break points in an epic fifth game to lead 4-1.

After the first set it was perhaps no surprise that Tipsarevic was unable to serve out for the match, two woeful backhand errors helping Murray to reduce his arrears to 5-4.

However, Murray himself was broken in the next game and Tipsarevic sank to his knees in the middle of the court in celebration of one of the best wins of his career.

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Mikhail Youzhny took Russian domination of the Kremlin Cup into a sixth year after seeing off Serbia’s Janko Tipsarevic to win the title in Moscow.

The event has been won by a Russian for the last five years and Youzhny made sure that trend continued after coming from behind to put in a dominant performance.

Youzhny, seeded third in the competition, had not lost a set coming into the showpiece but was soon behind after Tipsarevic took the opener 7-6 (7/5).

He responded in emphatic fashion, levelling the scores without reply to take the second set 6-0 and closed out victory by taking the decisive set 6-4.

Youzhny’s dominance in the serve was a key factor as he hit 14 aces in a match which occupied two hours and 45 minutes.

In the gentler side of the Kremlin Cup there was hardly a Russian woman to be seen anywhere, and Francesca Schiavone was the long-shot winner.

Schiavone, the No.8 seed at the Premier-level tournament, battled for two and a half hours to escape her first round match against qualifier Nuria Llagostera Vives, but didn’t drop a single set the rest of the way, including losing a total of just 12 games in her last three matches combined.

In Sunday’s final, Schiavone found herself on serve with the unseeded Olga Govortsova at 4-3 in the first set but reeled off eight games in a row to win, 63 60. During those eight games she lost only 11 points to the Belarusian.

“At the start it was a fight. We had a big game, the sixth game of the first set, that lasted about 15 minutes. I won it to go up 4-2, then I won the first set,” Schiavone said. “In the second set I was very solid. When I got to 4-0 in the second set I looked at the trophy and said to myself, ‘I’m coming to get you!’”

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“It’s very exciting for me to reach the quarter-finals, especially because I haven’t got this far in a lot of tournaments this year and I like it here in Russia,” said Ginepri. “It was good that I could follow up the great win over Igor (Andreev) with a very solid match today.”

Robby Ginepri reached his second ATP World Tour quarter-final of the season after defeating Spaniard Marcel Granollers 7-6(5), 6-0 Thursday at the Kremlin Cup, an ATP World Tour 250 indoor hard-court tennis tournament in Moscow, Russia.

Ginepri, who had upset fourth seed and 2005 champion Igor Andreev in the first round, built on his success by saving nine of the 10 break points he faced to dismiss Granollers in 90 minutes. The 27 year old broke serve four times from nine opportunities and struck seven aces in the pair’s first meeting.

World No. 92 Ginepri was impeded at the start of the season by a bout of appendicitis that left him 30 pounds lighter when he returned to the tour in May. He had won just four of 17 matches when he snapped a four-year title drought with victory at the Indianapolis Tennis Championships, defeating Sam Querrey in an all-American final.

Ginepri is through to the quarter-finals in Moscow for the first time, after suffering a second-round exit (l. to Kunitsyn) on debut last year, and next will face sixth seed Janko Tipsarevic, who advanced when Christophe Rochus retired ill with Tipsarevic leading 6-4, 2-1.

“Bad luck for him today but I think I was going to win anyway as I was in control of the match,” said Tipsarevic. “I feel really good right now. It will be tough against Ginepri and I need to start off well as I have done in my two matches here.”

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