By Anton Lagani, Lawn Tennis Correspondent, Posted: Monday, October 20, 2008 9:39am PST USA

MADRID/ZURICH--(lawntennismag.com) Sunday Andy Murray of Britain and Venus Williams of the USA both delivered some of their best tennis in recent months to each claim tour singles titles. At the Mutua Madrileņa Masters Madrid final, at Madrid Spain, Murray, seeded fourth, defeated the unseeded Frenchman Giles Simon 6-4, 7-6(8-6). At Zurich, Switzerland at the Zurich Open, the third seeded Williams beat the unseeded Flavia Pennetta of Italy 7-6(7-1), 6-2. Andy Murray and Venus Williams | Photos by Pierre-Philippe Marcou and Alessandro Della Bella

Four aces in a row from Williams, one reportedly hit at a record breaking 130 miles per hour, sent Williams ahead 3-1. After a long week of playing several three set matches, Simon appeared a step slower than he had before and somewhat flat gamewise. Simon would fail to hold any breakpoints for the entire match. Pressure from Murray at the net at 2 all in the first set resulted in a Simon forehand down the line hit wide as Murray would score the only break of serve of the match to go ahead 3-2. Murray took the first set with an ace on setpoint. Set two remained on serve with no breakpoints as the two players would enter the decisive tiebreaker. Picking up his game at a somewhat late stage of the match, Simon raced to a 6-4 tiebreak lead and held two setpoints after hitting a volley, a backhand and a forehand winner to win three straight points. Two groundstoke errors from Simon leveled the tiebreaker at 6 all before a Murray inside out crosscourt backhand winner set up matchpoint. A Simon backhand hit wide ended the 1 hour, 34 minutes match. Having lost to Pannetta in their last three meetings, Williams was determined to snap the streak as she kept her error count to a minimum and turned in one of her best serving days ever. Williams' power and athleticism was met with Pannetta's speed and placement as the high quality match entered a first set tiebreaker. However steady play from Williams and 6 consecutive errors from Pannetta gave Williams a 6-0 lead in the tiebreaker. Pannetta saved the first setpoint as Williams hit a forehand long. But Pannetta would net a backhand to close the set after one hour of play. In set two, two missed groundstrokes from Pannetta awarded Williams her first break of serve of the match and a 2-1 lead. Four aces in a row from Williams, one reportedly hit at a record breaking 130 miles per hour, sent Williams ahead 3-1. It was the first time in her career that Williams would win a four aces game. Pannetta showed good sportsmanship as she applauded the aces with her racket, but she was seemingly broken in her spirit as she was never a threat to Williams afterwards. Williams would win the final three games of the match to claim her second singles title of the year. Share: Facebook Digg