Andy Murray hasn’t had the best of starts in the French Open after being stretched to five sets by his opponents in the first two rounds.
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Beck meanwhile survived her first round match against Kateryna Bondarenko, defeating the Ukrainian 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 to advance to the third round at Roland Garros for the second straight year. That unwelcome sequence was finally ended in the next game, but Murray was forced to save two break points in the seventh game of the third set.
It’s hard to fathom just how Murray lost his way so badly against Bourgue to drop sets two and three after looking in control but he will take solace from the way he came back to continue his title quest.
The third was a tighter affair, but with Karlovic unable to muster up a single break point, it was just a case of Murray grabbing a fourth break of serve when the chance came along or winning the tie-break.
“Tired”, Murray said, before launching into a monologue about momentum and his positive thoughts on how he finished the match on Wednesday. “Mathias was excellent and made me run a lot”.
Gaston Gaudio in 2004 is the only player in the Open era to have won the French Open having player two five-setters in his opening two matches.
Andy Murray avoided another French Open marathon by maintaining his flawless record against Ivo Karlovic with a straight-sets victory to ease into the fourth round.
Quote of the day: “The thing that I actually get the most impressed with (in) Paris is the containment of the beauty of the architecture that is here”.
Karlovic is no slouch and Murray should be on notice for this one.
“He’s the best newcomer, so it will be an incredible match for me”, said the Frenchman, who defeated fellow former Roland Garros boys champion Bjorn Fratangelo of the United States on Wednesday to reach the last 32.
Nishikori’s progress has been impressive so far and he was too good for Russian Andrey Kuznetsov, winning 6-3 6-3 6-3.
The big-serving Croatian, another 37-year-old defying age, beat Australian wildcard Jordan Thompson 6-7 (2) 6-3 7-6 (3) 6-7 (4) 12-10 to become the oldest man to reach the third round of a slam since Jimmy Connors in 1991. The 101th-ranked Japanese, the youngest player remaining in the draw at 18, faces sixth-seeded Simona Halep on Court Suzanne Lenglen.
Defending champion and third seed Stan Wawrinka defeated New York-born Taro Daniel of Japan 7-6 (9/7), 6-3, 6-4 and goes on to face France’s Jeremy Chardy.
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“It’s the only time when being old is okay”, said Karlovic, when told of his achievement.
