Rising British Star to Play 2006 Heineken Open
TRising British tennis star Andy Murray has been confirmed for January's Heineken Open featuring the Sovereign singles and doubles.
The 18-year-old from Dunblane in Scotland has risen steadily to 66 in the world rankings after being outside the top 400 at the beginning of the year.
He is billed as the next great British hope and has so far got the results to prove it.
Murray started 2005 playing in Futures events but soon progressed to Challengers winning the titles at Binghampton and Aptos.
On grass he reached the third round of the Wimbledon build up event at Queens and then the following week at Wimbledon also made the third round.
At the US Open he defeated Andrei Pavel in five sets in the first round but lost to former top-10 player, Arnaud Clement in five sets in the second round.
His best result of the year was at the ATP tournament in Bangkok where he beat Robby Ginepri in the quarter-finals in three sets and then local idol Paradon Srichaphan in three sets before eventually losing to Roger Federer in the final.
In his last event of the year Murray won the "battle of the Brits" as he beat Tim Henman in the first round of the Basel tournament in three sets with huge media coverage of the match in Britain. In the second round he defeated talented Tomas Berdych (winner of last weeks Paris Masters event), again in three sets before losing to eventual winner Fernando Gonzalez in three sets.
Murray reached the world No2 junior ranking and had good junior Grand Slam results making the semis of Roland Garros this year, winning the junior US Open in 2004 and the quarters of the same event the previous year.
"Each year we look to have a potential future star in the Heineken Open Sovereign singles and we are pleased that Andy Murray, who is clearly seen as a star on the way up, will be playing in Auckland. This is sure to create tremendous interest amongst tennis people in New Zealand and the UK media and supporters," says Heineken Open tournament director, Graham Pearce.
Murray joins a quality list of players confirmed for January's 2006 Heineken Open with four top-20 players in Fernando Gonzalez, Robby Ginepri, Juan Carlos Ferrero and Dominik Hrbaty plus wildcards Mark Philippoussis and Mark Nielsen.
The 2006 Heineken Open featuring the Sovereign singles and doubles will be played January 9-14 at the ASB Tennis Centre, No1 Tennis Lane, Parnell. The first two rounds of qualifying will be played January 7-8 at the More FM Tennis Park, Albany.
