By Russell Miller
Andy Murray said he is encouraged by his US Open performance after a tight 4 set loss to Matteo Berrettini in the third round. The former champion fought valiantly but fell 6-4 6-4 6-7(1) 6-3 to the 13th seed in a match that lasted just shy of 4 hours.
Former US Open semi-finalist Berrettini will face Spain’s Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in the fourth round. On the 10-year anniversary of his US Open triumph, there were signs that Murray could go deep in a Major tournament for the first time in over six years after two promising early round showings.
However, the Brit felt let down by a poor serving performance where only 53% of his first serves landed in.
‘I served pretty poorly for a large part of the match, which hurt me a lot,’ Murray remarked in his press conference, before adding that ‘I just couldn’t find any rhythm on serve.’
After taking the third set which featured 8 break points saved by the Brit, there was much anticipation of a deciding set when he broke in the opening game of the second set. The Italian broke back immediately after and broke again to go 5-3 up before serving the match out.
Berrettini was visibly unhappy with the umpire at the end of the match, as he told him ‘it’s a joke. You guys have to do something. We play four hours but it’s like two hours waiting for people to sit down.’ Despite Berrettini’s comments suggesting the match wasn’t as physical as the length of match
suggested, Murray was happy with the endurance he showed, and the fact that his cramping issues might be behind him.
Speaking of the cramp that has seen him struggle over the US Open series, Murray said ‘we probably should have resolved it earlier than what we did, but we got there, and, you know, I played — I don’t know how long today’s match was, three hours and a half, three hours, 45 minutes, and the last couple of matches in some pretty tough conditions. I managed to get through that.’
Murray also added that he is looking forward to some team events coming up, including the Laver Cup, where he will be making his first ever appearance, alongside the likes of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic in late September. He is also likely to enter some ATP tour level events before the end of the year in the hope of gaining enough points to be seeded at next January’s Australian Open.
