The Sports Lowdown For All Your News and OpinionsAndy Murray has successfully opened the defence of his Olympic gold medal, as the Brit dismissed Viktor Troicki 6-3 6-2. Even though the world number two made a slow start to the match, he quickly recovered to dominate the contest thereafter and comfortably move through to the second round.
In the first set, Murray was broken in his opening service game but Troicki was unable to capitalise on his early advantage, as the Brit’s incredible defensive skills saw him extract enough errors from the Serbian to break back immediately when Troicki missed an overhead smash. The world number two then held his serve and created more break points, but Troicki survived to level the scoreline at 2-2. However, Murray’s unrelenting pressure and consistency in the rallies was too much for the Serbian and even though Troicki battled hard to save further break points, Murray finally made the decisive breakthrough with a deep return that his opponent couldn’t handle to establish a 4-2 lead. The Brit was not at his best but he did enough to consolidate the break, before eventually closing out the set on his serve to take the upper hand in the match.
As the second set unfolded, both players held their first service games but soon Murray raised his level and produced a wicked sliced return to extract the error from his opponent and as a result seal the early break. The Brit quickly consolidated the break and then ruthlessly struck again, using his powerful groundstrokes to dictate the baseline exchanges and clinch the double break to open up a commanding 5-1 margin. Troicki had continuously struggled to match his opponent and manage his unforced error count, but the Serbian did well to force the world number two to serve for the match. However, despite facing a break point, Murray was too strong overall and he wrapped up the victory when Troicki sprayed a forehand return wide to secure his place in the next round.
However, Murray was less fortunate in the doubles with his brother Jamie as they suffered a narrow 7-6 7-6 defeat to the Brazilian pairing of Thomaz Bellucci and Andre Sa, despite holding set points in the second set tie-break. But, as for the other Brits in their respective singles matches, Kyle Edmund, Heather Watson and Johanna Konta all progressed.
Meanwhile, Rafael Nadal returned to action since withdrawing from the French Open with a wrist injury and the 2008 Beijing gold medallist cruised past Federico Delbonis 6-2 6-1 to join Kei Nishikori, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, and David Ferrer in the next round.
But, in the biggest shock of the tournament so far, Novak Djokovic made a tearful exit as in a repeat of the bronze medal match in London in 2012, once again the world number one was defeated at the Olympics by Juan Martin Del Potro, who produced a powerful display to secure a 7-6 7-6 win .
On the women’s side, Serena Williams opened her title defence with a 6-4 6-2 victory over Daria Gavrilova, as Angelique Kerber, Petra Kvitova and Garbine Muguruza all went through with straight set wins. However, Venus Williams was knocked out of the singles competition in three sets by Kirsten Flipkens and was also eliminated from the doubles event alongside her sister Serena, as they were upset by the Czech pairing of Lucie Safarova and Barbora Strycova.
