Murray was joined in the third-round by Aljaz Bedene, who came through his own five-set battle against higher-ranked Spaniard Pablo Carreno Busta. “I lost my way on the court today, you know, for a while”.
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“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. Today certainly wasn’t easy, I lost my way on the court for quite a while.
Now he had what, on paper, was another winnable match against the second oldest man in the draw.
He now goes on to face 27th seed Ivo Karlovic from Croatia in the third round on Friday.
“Physically, the average rally length will only be a few shots maybe three, four shots max”.
“You can’t continue playing matches like that and then expect to win the tournament”, Murray told reporters.
“I was struggling to win points at one stage”. Karlovic on the other hand…
Such is Murray’s returning ability, though, that he has won all six of their previous meetings-and five of their eight tie-break sets.
Murray had spent more than seven hours on court in the first two rounds, but he showed no ill effects as he began superbly against Karlovic.
In the brief rallies Murray was more often than not able to wrongfoot his opponent, and in taking a little power off his serve was maintaining a first serve percentage in the high seventies.
As is usually the case when Murray plays the tall, big servers he was dialled in right from the beginning and received the added bonus of a foot fault in his opponent’s second game that led to a double fault.
There was no looking back for them as they went on to win the set 6-2. Karlovic, in characteristic fashion, saved the first with an ace but on the second he hit his return beyond the baseline. Double faults missed by a yard and drop shots landed one-third of a way up the net.
Murray admitted one factor may have been the stress of the Stepanek match, which started on Monday evening with the Scot losing the first two sets and ended with an ultra tense decider on Tuesday when he was two points from defeat.
Japan’s Kei Nishikori, due to face Murray in the quarterfinals, continued to breeze, topping Andrey Kuznetsov in straight sets, and Australia’s Nick Kyrgios, another with good results entering the French, swept past Dutch serve-and-volleyer Igor Sijsling 6-3 6-2 6-1, only conceding one break point.
The speed and decisiveness of the win will no doubt feel all the sweeter for the style of the win.
When he pummelled a backhand victor down the line to take the third set Murray looked stunned and the partisan Court Philippe Chatrier crowd were in full cry.
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No player has won a grand slam title in the Open era having played more than three five-set matches during the tournament, while it is the first time in more than a decade Murray has played back-to-back five-setters.
