The world No 1 followed Andy Murray onto Court Philippe Chatrier but there was none of the drama of the Scot’s five-set win over Radek Stepanek as Djokovic eased to a 6-4 6-1 6-1 victory against Lu Yen-hsun.
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Murray lost the opening two sets against 37-year-old Radek Stepanek, a qualifier from the Czech Republic who was the oldest man in the field, then twice was two points from losing while serving down 5-4 in the fifth on Tuesday.
Stepanek said: “His improvement on clay in the last years was tremendous”. There are also some good attributes that I have on the court, too.
Stepanek revels in making life hard for his opponent, through his play and by any other means possible, and it was not long before Murray was chuntering away.
“When we sat down in Madrid (earlier this month where they chose to part ways) – anyone who said it’s heated is lying and was not there”.
And to say that the reason that we stopped working together is because of my behavior on the court, that is not true.
Having failed to make a final on the surface until previous year and managing just one victory over a top-10 player, Murray can now boast three titles and wins over both Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal.
A fired-up Murray hit back by wasting no time at all to take the third set in emphatic fashion and took the first three games of the fourth after expressing frustration to the umpire over what he felt was time-wasting from the wily Stepanek.
In the final set, Stepanek held for 5-4, hanging on superbly, and Murray had to serve to stay in the tournament.
Andy Murray is coming off a five set win over Mathias Bourgue that took 43 games to decide.
“The 37-year-old, with three qualifying wins under his belt, adapted to the slow conditions superbly, and only by winning 10 of the last 12 games of the night did Murray drag himself back into the match”. That’s credit to him and the way he played. “And that’s something that I’ve always tried to find a way to improve”.
Despite the tension during the match, the two players embraced warmly at the end.
But Azarenka’s knee buckled in the sixth game of the second set, and she started grimacing and limping.
“It wasn’t the best tennis”. I don’t expect to be doing that when I get to that age.
Stepanek was once ranked as high as eighth in the world in singles, but had a better reputation as a doubles player, having won the 2012 Australian Open and the 2013 US Open men’s doubles titles with Leander Paes.
“Overall incredible match. Tough battle”. I displayed them in abundance today, in my opinion, and yesterday.
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“You know, I’m glad that my team’s right behind me in situations like that”. I have no regrets.
