Since the start of this year’s grass-court season, the confidence with which Andy Murray has tackled his favourite surface has been striking. Even after all he has endured, Murray consistently maintained that he remains one of the better grass-court players in the world.
During a spectacular second-round contest of the highest quality with Stefanos Tsitsipas, Murray completely backed up his self-belief. Still, confirmation of the high level he is still capable of competing at over five sets will provide him with no joy as his Friday evening ended in heartbreaking defeat.
In the most significant match of the tournament so far, Tsitsipas rose to the occasion on his Centre Court debut and produced one of his best performances of the season, recovering from a two sets to one deficit overnight to win both sets on Friday and defeat Murray 7-6 (3), 6-7 (2), 4-6, 7-6 (3), 6-4.
An incredible victory was made all the more impressive by the level required to pull it off. Tsitsipas may have begun the tournament in dire form with a pitiful record on grass, but he had started the match on Thursday playing at a stratospheric level. He served excellently, vaporising forehands and remaining laser-focused as he took the first set on a tie-break. By early in the second set, almost every time Tsitsipas found a forehand in a neutral position, the point ended with a forehand winner.
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Still, despite the immense challenge from his opponent, Murray was right there. He served brilliantly, taking care of his service games throughout. Facing a barrage of nuclear forehands, Murray so often managed to find Tsitsipas’s backhand, eking out errors from the Greek with his accuracy, consistency and guile.
After taking the second and third sets to establish a lead as time ran out, Murray departed on Thursday night having struck just 11 unforced errors in three sets.
But nothing is ever simple in Murray’s world.
In the penultimate point on Thursday night, the Scot slipped and appeared to hurt his groin, meaning question marks remained overnight about his physical conditioning. As Murray warmed up on Friday morning, however, he looked fit. They returned under completely different conditions, the roof open in the afternoon sun, their games exposed to the elements.
After a long night to sleep on their hopes and regrets from the match, nerves were palpable from both early on as they each produced just a few more loose shots and were charged with enduring tight games on each of their service games. As both players fell into a rhythm on serve during the fourth set, Murray had his half-chances.
At 4-4, he returned extremely well, forcing Tsitsipas to hit backhands and he flitted from side to side. Despite nervous moments at deuce, Tsitsipas held serve brilliantly. By the time they reached a third tie-break, both players were striking the ball beautifully.
But it was the Greek who held his nerve under pressure as Murray made a number of crucial errors, including missing with a couple of poor backhands. Meanwhile, Tsitsipas continued to laser forehand winners and then he snatched the decisive mini-break with a moment of genius; a breathless 30-stroke rally, with the players dragging each other from side to side, ended with Tsitsipas sweeping to the net and picking off the point with an overhead. With the advantage secured, Tsitsipas powered on to a fifth set.
After four hours of great serving and discipline during his service games, Murray meekly gave away his first break of the match early on in the fifth set. After double-faulting at 1-1, 0-30, he struck a bad forehand error on Tsitsipas’s third break point to relinquish his serve.
With this first break secured, Tsitsipas continued to play as he did for more than four hours across two days, indoors and out. He marched through his service games, serving spectacularly well and attacking every forehand he could as he secured a monumental win.
Despite Wimbledon being one of the tournaments where he first made his name, emerging as a wide-eyed teenager who looked to dive-volley spectacularly at every opportunity, most of Tsitsipas’s outings on grass courts since then have been tough. His backhand and return of serve are so often exposed, the low bounce unfavourable to a player who grew up on clay. But Tsitsipas showed the force of his brilliant strengths can completely outweigh those weaknesses and he may have arrived at a turning point in his grass-court career.
For Murray, the last few years have been a long and at times brutal journey since the French Open in 2017, the scene of his last victory against a top-10 player at a grand slam. – Guardian
