Andy Murray has already made an excellent start to defending his St Petersburg title and could be back on familiar territory with champagne as early as Sunday. However, some days you simply have to make do without the models ad the champagne. Murray, for example, celebrated his win back at home by doing his washing, walking his dog and enjoying a nice ice bath after winning the Madrid title this week.

Mr. Domestic was back on a match court in the first round, taking commanding straight sets wins over his opponent Serbian Victor Troicki. It has already been indicated that this will be an extremely busy finish for him and a profitable season overall. Murray played a total of five matches and won a Masters shield in Madrid, but he still needs to score five more additional wins if his intention is to defend his title at St. Petersburg, which can be done in the Paris Masters next week and the eight man Masters cup next month in Shanghai. But this is exactly how Murray would want it, contesting and taking victories in as many different matches as possible. There is still potentially a lot of good tennis that can be played before 2008 is through, and potentially a lot more cause to spray some champagne around.

Since he lost in the quarter finals to Rafael Nadal in Wimbledon, Murray has taken wins on 20 of his last 23 ranking matches. These numbers would have appeared even better if he had not gone out in the first round of the Olympic event in Beijing. Murray is already the only Briton in professional Tennis to take four singles titles in a single season. Still, it will be interesting to see if he is going to be able to keep his momentum up, especially in Europe and then in the Far East next month.

Since his loss in Wimbledon recently, Murray has already taken wins against Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic. If he can win an additional Masters shield or perhaps the Masters Cup, then that would ultimately set him up to go into the close season before everyone reconvenes in January for the Australian Open tournament. Against Victor Troicki from Serbia, Murray was a 6-3, 6-3 winner. Next he will move on to contest against Ernests Gulbis, a redheaded tennis star that is regarded by many as one of the most dangerous players on the tour. Murray has experience battling Gulbis, having bested the Latvian tennis pro in three sets during the Queen's Club pre-Wimbledon tournament, however he damaged a thumb during the match which forced him to withdraw from his next match which was against Andy Roddick.

That match back in June seems like ancient history now, because Murray has gone on to turn the 'Big Three' competition into the 'Big Four' by joining Djokovic, Nadal and Federer as one of the true elite in tennis this season.

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