Croatia's Ivan Ljubicic claimed Qatar's ExxonMobil Tennis Open. Shawki Saadeddin reports from Doha The 2007 edition started on the first day of the year, from January 1-6, in unexpectedly cold weather but it was an amazing week full of ups and downs. Ivan Ljubicic finished the first week of the 2007 ATP season in a familiar position as he hoisted the trophy, the Golden Falcon, Saturday afternoon at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open 2007, beating fourth seed Andy Murray 6-4, 6-4. Ljubicic, who last year began the season with the Chennai trophy, finished as the Doha runner- up in 2004 and 2005. But this year, the second- seeded Croat refused to take home second place honours as he relied on experience to extinguish the challenge presented by Murray. Murray had his chances to make a triumphant start to the new season and travel to the Australian Open, which began in Melbourne earlier this week, in even greater heat but the Scottish teenager came up fractionally short on the key points. Ljubicic had earned his place in the Doha final by saving two match points in his semi-final match against Robin Soderling, which he won in the third set tie-break. Meanwhile, Murray had recorded an impressive, straight-sets win over top seed Nikolay Davydenko in the semifinals. Murray, who finished last year ranked No 17 in only his second ATP season, fell to 1-3 in his career ATP final appearances. His lone title came last February in San Jose, where he defeated Lleyton Hewitt. Ljubicic improved to a 7-9 record in ATP finals. He appeared in five finals in 2006, winning the titles in Chennai, Zagreb and Vienna while finishing as runner-up in Indian Wells and Bangkok. It was Ljubicic's seventh title of a nine-year career and he did it the hard way by outlasting Russia's Mikhail Youzhny in a marathon quarter- final and saving two match points in his semi- final against Sweden's Robin Soderling. Murray showed great courage to save three match points before mystifyingly attempting a drop shot -- a tactic which had frequently failed him over the previous five days -- to present Ljubicic with the clinching point in a 1hr 48min victory. Britain's new great hope was far from down- hearted afterwards. "Obviously I would rather have won but to get to the final is perfect," Murray said. "I have had five matches here and I am guaranteed three matches in a Kooyong exhibition tournament next week so I should be feeling pretty good when I go into the Australian Open. "I am so happy; this is the fourth year in a row that I reach the final of Qatar ExxonMobil Open. It's a pretty big achievement," Ljubicic said. "I fight until the very last point, it's normal to me. I did not come all the way here from home to give up if my opponent is beating me." "This is one of my best wins ever. He's No 3 in the world, very consistent and he beat me the only two times we played, including the US Open. I knew I had to raise the level of my game to beat him," Murray told the press conference. In doubles, defending champions Leander Paes of India and Martin Damm of the Czech Republic suffered a heart-breaking upset defeat at the hands of an unseeded pair. The third seeded Paes and Damm were defeated 1-6, 6-7 (3-6) by Russian Mikhail Youzhny and Serb Nenad Zimonjic in a build up to the Australian Open Grand Slam. A total of eight breaks of services were witnessed during the match with Paes-Damm, the reigning US Open champions, recording three breaks and Youzhny-Zimonjic five. Paes had also won the trophy in 1998 with compatriot Mahesh Bhupathi. Youzhny, a Doha doubles runner-up in 2005, won his second career ATP doubles title, while Zimonjic claimed his 14th. Sheikh Mohamed Bin Faleh Al-Thani, president of Qatar Tennis Federation alongside, Alex Dodds, president and GM of ExxonMobil Qatar awarded Ljubicic $142,000 in prize money. Murray took home $82,600. "Money spent on tennis and all sports in Qatar is to create champions in all games, especially in tennis as we do not have any Arab on the world list or participating in the ATP Tour," Sheikh Mohamed said. "We hope to find some of our juniors participating in the Tour".
