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Murray beats Federer to take Toronto title

Andy Murray beat Roger Federer 7-5, 7-5 to defend his Rogers Cup title on Sunday in an ideal warmup for the U.S. Open.

The 23-year-old from Scotland overcame several rain delays to become the first man to repeat as champion since Andre Agassi in 1995. He beat top-ranked Rafael Nadal in the semifinals.

“This is the first time I’ve beat Roger and Rafa in the same tournament, which is probably the most pleasing thing,” Murray said. “And I didn’t drop a set against either of them — so it’s good for the confidence for the next few weeks.”

The pair last met in the Australian Open final, an easy win for Federer that gave him 16 Grand Slam titles.

Rain delayed the start of the match by 15 minutes and, when play finally began, Murray broke Federer’s serve twice in the first 10 minutes.

“I thought he played well,” Federer said. “He wasn’t giving me much and he clutch-served at the very end when he had to. He deserved the victory.”

Federer’s last action before this tournament was his quarterfinal loss at Wimbledon. He even worked with a coach, American Paul Annacone, and declared he would “love to win another 10 Wimbledons, another five French Opens, an Olympic gold in London, a Davis Cup and whatever — you name it.”

After going down the early breaks, Federer rallied to 5-5. But Federer lost his own serve before Murray served out.

Murray was on serve with Federer up 2-1 in the second set when another rain delay happened, this one more than 45 minutes. Murray held serve to level the second set at 2-2 when the chair umpire called the two men back to their umbrellas just moments after play resumed.

A storm rolled in just after 4 p.m., causing about an hour-long delay. Federer perked up briefly when play resumed, but eventually Murray’s serve was too much.

“The rain delays completely kind of shut it down for me to get any kind of rhythm,” Federer said. “It was played at a couple of points here and there. It didn’t even feel like the end of the match, you know? All of the sudden, it was all over.”

The tournament had the top four players in the semifinals. Federer beat Novak Djokovic and Murray beat Rafael Nadal.

“I felt pretty good this week, and I prepared well for the tournament,” Murray said. “I just wanted to go for my shots more this week, you know, play the way that I felt like playing and it definitely worked.”