Albert Montañés is going to be the next player on the ATP World Tour to find out what makes Andy Murray special. The draw for the Qatar Exxon-Mobil Open - one of five events this year in which the British No1 will be defending a title - has planted the world No43 in the way of the man of the first week of 2009.

It took Montañés ten years to win his first senior tournament - an event in Amersfoort in the Netherlands. Murray managed his breakthrough a lot quicker than that and has delivered the first exhilarating message of intent of a new tennis year.

Back-to-back victories over Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal on successive days do not come along that often and, although the full house and the excitable commentary may have one thinking that this was something for the record books, with the Capitala World Championship having been a three-day exhibition event, the results will not stand on anyone's record. That said, it is writ large in all three players' minds.

This week's tournament in Doha is one of the newly revamped ATP 250 series, meaning that it ranks in “points on offer” alongside such noted events as the Medibank International in Sydney next week and the AEGON Championships at Queen's Club in West London in June. Indeed, the winner's cheque of $183,000 (about £129,000) for winning five matches in Qatar is a lot less than the £170,000 Murray walked away with for his three in Abu Dhabi that culminated in an enthralling three-set win over Nadal, the Wimbledon champion from Spain, on Saturday. Murray has been drawn in the same half as Federer, the Swiss who faces Potito Starace, of Italy, in the opening round. Nadal and Andy Roddick, the American, make up the top four seeds. Asked how he felt after his exertions in Abu Dhabi, Murray replied simply: “Tired - he [Nadal] made me do a lot of running, but I thought it was a great match from both of us.” And so it was.

At least there were no physical marks on either player. That was not so of Marat Safin, the former world No1 from Russia and a Wimbledon semi-finalist last year, when he arrived in Perth on Saturday for the Hopman Cup mixed event, in which he has teamed with Dinara Safina, his sister. He has two black eyes and a bandaged right thumb. “I got in trouble a little bit in Moscow, but it's OK. I can survive,” Safin said. “There was a small problem and I was not in the right place at the right time, so let's put it this way - I won the fight. I'm good, I'm OK. I won my match today and I didn't play for two months, so that's pretty good.”