Federer beats Murray for fifth Dubai title

Roger Federer underlined his status as an enduring front line contender with the 72nd title of his career which extended his record of Dubai Open trophies to five with victory over Andy Murray yesterday.

Federer overcame the Scot 7-5, 6-4 in a tightly-contested final in which the Swiss resisted a Murray mini-comeback.

During that period, Federer’s sequence of 66 unbroken service games came to an end, but he was slightly the more assertive player and his success brought him his 33rd win in 35 matches and his second title in succession.

“It’s beautiful winning this title,” Federer said.

“It’s such a difficult tournament with so many top ten players, and Andy having such a huge victory getting to the final,” he added, referring to Murray’s semi-final victory over world number one Novak Djokovic.

Murray missed a decent chance to make a decisive thrust when he had Federer at 15-40 in the sixth game.

The first of these break points offered Murray a good chance of converting, but unaccountably he replied to Federer’s three-quarter length slightly sliced ball by over-hitting a flat backhand drive.

Murray was also at the focus of the game’s most unusual incident, appealing for a Hawkeye replay twice on the same point, when his first serves were called faults – and both times proving the line judge wrong.

He followed it with a slightly caustic aside to umpire Mohamed Lahyani, in which he appeared to refer to the Hawkeye controversy two days previously when Tomas Berdych’s failed return of serve stood after an incorrect service line judge call.

And Murray followed that with an ace as if to justify himself. But by allowing Federer to escape from his early crisis, he had stored up trouble.

The four-times former champion continued with his unblemished serving record – standing at 58 unbroken games before this match – and then broke Murray for 6-5.

It happened with the help of a mis-hit return of serve, which set up a comfortable passing opportunity for Federer, but by then much of the damage had been done because Federer had been allowed to rebuild his momentum.

This continued in a slightly higher, smoother gear in the second set, in which Federer this time broke much earlier, in the third game, getting him to 2-1 and then 3-1 when he consolidated it.

At 5-4 there was rarely much doubt that Federer would close it out.

Federer concluded: “It is wonderful to win five. It’s only happened at a handful of tournaments maybe in my career.”