Old habits die hard for Andy Murray. Even at 34, even with a metal hip and a world ranking of 112, Murray takes the long road. In this case, nearly five hours long. Had Murray been able to convert one of two points he held for a two sets to love lead over Stefanos Tsitsipas, the world No 3, he would surely have gone on to cause a seismic opening round upset at the US Open. Instead, the chance and the match got away from him, the Greek surviving a titanic and ultimately controversial tussle 2-6, 7-6 (9-7), 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.
Tsitsipas said afterwards that he had come prepared for a battle, that he was aware of Murray’s dogged determination and ability to explore the outermost limits of his opponents’ physical and mental reserves. Yet even Murray, for so long untested at this rarefied level of the sport, may have been surprised by the superb quality of this performance. He has long maintained that he needed an injury-free run to train properly and, having finally found that respite in the build-up to Flushing Meadows, he produced tennis of a standard that will surely reshape perceptions of what the future might hold.
Murray was in no mood to accentuate the post-match positives, however. He was too angry for that. His displeasure stemmed principally from the eight-minute bathroom break Tsitsipas took at the end of the fourth set. Such absences have become an increasingly regular feature of the 23-year-old’s matches, and Murray is not the first player to take a dim view of the practice. At the Cincinnati Masters, Alexander Zverev complained to the umpire during a similarly lengthy break in play that Tsitsipas could be receiving text messages from Apostolos, his father and coach, who was later pictured busily typing into his phone while his son was off court. Murray, who directed his ire at Gerry Armstrong, the ATP Tour supervisor, could be heard railing about “cheating” during the decider. The post-match handshake was a mutually frosty affair.
“It’s not so much leaving the court,” said Murray, who was also upset about a medical timeout Tsitsipas took after losing the third set. “It’s the amount of time. I spoke to my team before the match about it and said to expect that, prepare for it if things were not going his way. So I was trying to do that. But the issue is that you cannot stop the way that that affects you physically. When you’re playing a brutal match like that, you know, stopping for seven, eight minutes, you do cool down. You can prepare for it mentally as much as you like, but it’s the fact that it does affect you physically when you take a break that long, well, multiple times during the match.
“[It happened] before my serve as well. I think when he took the medical timeout, it was just after I had won the third set. Also in the fourth set when I had 0-30, he chose to go – I don’t know if he changed his racquet, or what we was doing. But it can’t be coincidence that it’s happening at those moments. I don’t believe it was causing him any issue at all. The match went on for another two and a bit hours after that or something. He was fine, moving great I thought.
“It’s just disappointing, because I feel it influenced the outcome of the match. I’m not saying I necessarily win that match, for sure, but it had influence on what was happening after those breaks. I rate him a lot. I think he’s a brilliant player. I think he’s great for the game. But I have zero time for that stuff at all, and I lost respect for him.”
For all his disappointment, Murray can take heart from a performance that, for the first time since he underwent hip surgery, unequivocally demonstrated his enduring ability to live with the best in the world. This was a very different Murray to the one who had fallen early in Cincinnati and Winston-Salem, let alone to the disconsolate figure who had publicly wondered if it was all still worth it after a wretched loss to Denis Shapovalov at Wimbledon. The received wisdom was that Murray would push Tsitsipas for a set or so, giving a good account of himself but without genuinely troubling the Greek. Nothing could have been further from the truth.
Focused, intense and competitive from first point to last, Murray found the power and consistency of old on serve, moved with a freedom and fluency that belied his injury travails, and played with a self-belief that many feared had permanently deserted him. Up against one of the game’s most effective servers, he returned brilliantly. He drew on his experience and tactical nous to discomfit Tsitsipas, orchestrating the crowd with his fist pumps and mixing up the play with his trademark array of drop shots, angles and slices. He yelled at his team when he was unable to change his sweat-soaked shoes because no one had thought to pack a spare pair. He raged at Armstrong, roundly informing him: “It’s never once taken me that long to go to the toilet, ever.” Oh yes, this was the Murray of old all right.
The first signs that Murray meant business came early. Tsitsipas is accustomed to rattling through his service games, but Murray extended the big-serving Greek to three deuces in the first game and grabbed his first break of the match in the third. The manner of the breakthrough spoke volumes about his assessment of the younger man’s game, the Scot directing a barrage of groundstrokes to Tsitsipas’s backhand before drawing an error with a thumping approach shot. A second break soon followed.
Having fallen behind, Tsitsipas improved markedly on serve in the second set. Murray stayed with him all the way to the tiebreak, saving two break points in the fourth game and recovering from 0-30 down in the tenth, and it took some bold play by Tsitsipas to deny him from 6-4 up in the breaker. Unperturbed, Murray broke early in the third set, where he produced his best tennis of the evening, his play and his thinking as sharp as a tack. At 5-3, he came in behind his serve for the first time, prompting his startled opponent to send a lob beyond the baseline. A measured forehand winner followed, and now Murray really had his tail up.
It was then that the first significant delay occurred, Tsitsipas receiving treatment on a foot problem before the start of the fourth set. His discomfort, which appeared genuine, did not prevent him from taking a commanding 5-0 lead, however, and when he broke again early in the decider there was to be no way back for Murray.
Tsitsipas afterwards rebutted Murray’s suggestions that he had resorted to delaying tactics.
“If there’s something that he has to tell me, we should speak the two of us to kind of understand what went wrong,” said the Greek. “I don’t think I broke any rules. I played by the guidelines. Definitely something for both of us to kind of chat about and make sure. I don’t know how my opponent feels when I’m out there playing the match. It’s not really my priority.”
Asked about suggestions he had been texting his father last week in Cincinnati, Tsitsipas dismissed the idea as “absolutely ridiculous”. “I have never in my career done that,” he said. “I don’t know what kind of imagination it takes to go to that point.”
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