Andy Murray sets sights on two gold medals at Beijing Olympics

Aug 10 2008 By Scott Ronald

HIGH-FLYING Andy Murray last night declared he is raring to go in his bid to land two Olympic tennis golds.

The Scot goes into the Games full of confidence after winning the biggest title of his career in Cincinnati last weekend.

He lines up today with brother Jamie in the first round of the doubles before facing Chinese Taipei's Lu Yen-Hsun in the singles tomorrow.

And last night the 21-year-old said: "I've played well in the last few months and if I can keep that up I will have a decent chance.

"In tennis grand slams are huge. But in the whole of sport if you can win a medal at the Olympics it's one of the biggest achievements. So it would mean a lot to win it."

Sixth seed in the singles, Murray is in the same half of the draw as prospective world number one Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.

But Andy added: "On any day, anyone can beat anyone. But I have a tricky draw and will have to play well if want to win a medal."

Nadal is a potential quarter-final opponent butMurray believes he can upset the Spaniard - despite losing all five of their matches.

He said: "I've had a lot of chances in three of the matches we've played."

The Murrays take on Canadian world doubles number one Daniel Nestor and partner Frederic Niemeyer this morning.

Murray said: "We have a tough first match so it's going to be tricky. But if we play well we have a chance of going far and maybe sneaking a medal."

Meanwhile, on day one action former world judo champion Craig Fallon insisted he didn't let the pressure of being a potential medal winner get to him after he slumped to seventh in the 60kg category.

But he admitted he felt out of sorts as Fallon came within one victory of making the play-off for bronze.

He said: "There was enough going on without thinking about being the first medal winner. I had my own expectations apart from winning the first medal so I'm disappointed.

"From the warm-up in the morning I was struggling to really get into it. My mind was wandering and I found it hard to concentrate.

"A lot of things were going through my head - the fights I was going to have, things I was going to do and the thingsmy opponents were going to do.

"I couldn't put in any more. But I felt drained from the minute I went into the first bout."

Britain's medal hopes in the rowing were boosted after the men's four powered into the semi-finals.

Steve Williams - defending the title he won in Athens four years ago - and crewmates Andy Triggs Hodge, Tom James and Pete Reed claimed a confidence-boosting win in their heat.

Afterwards Williams said: "We haven't rowedmuch together so there is still roomfor improvement. We've done some good stuff in training but there's a step up to doing it in a race."

Single-sculler Alan Campbell and the men's double sculls of Matt Wells and Stephen Rowbotham also opened with victories.

At the sailing regatta, two-time gold medallist Ben Ainslie claimed victory in the second race in the Finn class to move up to third overall.

British boxer James Degale bagged a first-round win over Egypt's Mohamed Hikal but admitted: "This is the biggest show on earth and I was a bit nervous."