Big-serving local hope Sam Groth has been bundled out of the Australian Open in straight sets by No. 2 seed Andy Murray. Join The Roar for live scores from 2pm (AEDT).
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Fortunately for him, he conserved energy for those matches Wednesday with a relatively easy 6-0, 6-4, 6-1 victory over Sam Groth. However, the second set was already 3-1 in Murray’s advantage at that point, and the mismatch was painfully obvious for the Australian fans.
The big Australian overpowered France’s Adrian Mannarino with 27 aces and the fastest serve recorded at the tournament so far at 235 kph to set up the clash with Murray.
The Australian began to get his game together but Murray still got his fifth service break to take a two sets to love lead when Groth’s crouching volley was wide on break point.
Murray’s summer is notable for losing to Nick Kyrgios in Perth at the Hopman Cup.
The World No2 was in control from the start taking the first set in 29 minutes without dropping a single game.
Murray has never won the Australian Open, and will view this match as a chance to assess his form before the tournament gets into the later stages. Groth hammers down a serve, can see Murray is going to smash past another return, and challenges his own serve.
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Murray drilled down with two more service breaks in the third set to wrap up a convincing win, with Groth finishing in pain from an apparent twisted right ankle as he made a net approach in the final game. An ace down the middle at 227km/h resulted in a cry of joy from Groth who followed that ace up with an unreturnable serve that handed him his first game, his arms rising in a mixture of celebration and relief.
“Hopefully I will serve well and it doesn’t come back”, Groth said.
Murray will face either 32nd seed Joao Sousa or Colombian Santiago Giraldo in the third round.
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“He’ll make it tough for me because he has a different game style to a lot of the players now“.
