ANDY Murray showed nerves of steel to battle through in five sets against Kei Nishikori then said his scheduled superstar showdown with Novak Djokovic’s Serbia in the Davis Cup quarter finals was one for the whole sport to savour.
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There will be much water under the bridge in both camps before the quarter final, an away tie, arrives – immediately after Wimbledon in mid-July. Sure enough, as he had done in the quarters, semis and final a year ago, Murray played the doubles rubber, too, and the British duo offered up not a break point chance, and dropped just 15 points on serve in the match. “I was ready to fight again in the fifth set”.
Tomic challenged the commitment of Kyrgios to the Davis Cup after his team-mate s withdrawal from the Kooyong tie with illness and back trouble.
But Murray played three rubbers over the weekend, saving the best until last as he saw off Nishikori in almost five hours, 7-5, 7-6, 3-6, 4-6, 6-3.
“It was one of the longest matches I have ever played in my life”, Murray said afterwards.
‘After the Olympics, if it means missing Cincinnati and taking a week off ahead of the US Open, it is just about being smart, managing your time and body as best as you can’. I have volunteered for all three days and I really, really wanted to win. Maybe I lost some focus for a few games in the second set. I really cared about today’s match, I’d expect that to stay the same throughout the year.
So there was no question that Murray was fresh, nor that he was eager for victory.
Heather Watson won her third WTA Tour singles title by beating Belgium’s Kirsten Flipkens 3-6, 6-2, 6-3 in the final of the Monterrey Open.
Murray now faces the prospect of taking on Djokovic in Serbia after the world number one prevailed in a thriller against Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Kukushkin.
Murray had only lost two of his 30 previous singles matches, and was unbeaten on hard courts, while Nishikori was 19 from 21 and had not lost since 2012. Even more intriguingly, the Rio Olympics will follow on three weeks later.
Since Murray and Djokovic joined Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal at the top of the game, none of the quartet have faced each other in Davis Cup.
In the meantime, though, we should enjoy another fine achievement by Great Britain, who justified their position as the world’s top-ranked team. Berdych had received lengthy treatment after the fifth game of the first set. “He’s awesome. It’s an absolute privilege to sit with him for a match like that and we’ll remember that one for a very long time”. He generates huge racket-head speed with a whiplike flick of the wrists on both wings, and his freakish timing allows him not only to power the ball like a much larger man, but also to redirect it crosscourt or down the line as he wishes.
Already this match was three hours old, and now it was Nishikori who looked the more exhausted as Murray seemed to get a second wind. But you would think he would get to the end of Wimbledon so going to a clay court is a great change and I don’t think it is [Viktor] Troicki’s best surface or [Nenad] Zimonjic’s. It was only at the start of the fifth set that he managed to reboot his system and push strongly for the finish. “You know you are closer to the end and you have only got 30 or 40 minutes to go”.
Nishikori said the loud home crowd in Birmingham comes with the job. It’s never easy, but it’s always exciting and fun.
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“I do think it was a really good effort to come through that”, said the 28-year-old, “after going down a break at the beginning of the fifth, and how I was feeling physically as well”.
