Andy Murray admitted before his secound round tie with Adrian Mannarino that he was expecting a tricky encounter, and he got just that.
Both players shared breaks of serve in the opening set and after squandering three break points at 5-4, Murray went on to regret not taking his opportunities as the Frenchman broke him in the following game and served it out to win the first set 7-5.
The Scot was struggling to cope with the variety in his opponent’s game. Not only is Mannarino left-handed but he also mixes things up by combining drop shots with ghosting runs to the net and, with Murray struggling to read his game, the world number three’s frustration was ever-growing as he vented his anger towards his box time and time again.
At 4-4 Murray played a disastrous service game which allowed Mannarino to break to love. It wasn’t so much a case of the Frenchman defeating the Brit, but the Brit defeating himself. Mannarino rounded off a run of eleven consecutive points with a traditional wide serve and volley to seal the set 6-4 and the biggest upset of the tournament was on the cards.
From then on, however, it was the Murray show as Mannarino’s energy levels drastically dropped. The British number one broke the world number 35 in the opening game of the third set (at that point only the second break point converted from ten by Murray) and sailed away to 6-1.
Despite the match being two sets to one in favour of Mannarino, it seemed nigh on impossible for the Frenchman to actually win the match. Perhaps it was the heat or humidity or perhaps it was the task of keeping up with Murray’s rhythm but Mannarino seemed to be running on empty. Still, he showed his pride and saved five break points in the opening game of the fouth set but in his next service game he double faulted to hand Murray the break. And once again it was a Mannarino double fault which settled the set at 6-3.
Again any hopes of the Frenchman having a chance in the deciding set were dashed when Murray broke at 1-0. The Scot did so again at 4-1 and cruised over the finish line after that early scare taking the match 5-7, 4-6, 6-1, 6-3, 6-1 in 3 hours and 17 minutes. Normally a five set match so early on in a Grand Slam would raise a few warning flags as to how it might affect a player subsequently further ahead in the tournament but in this case it was a rather strange five set match in that the last three sets barely forced Murray into having to break a sweat.
Fitness is precisely one field where few can challenge Murray and after turning around a two set deficit for the eighth time in his career, the reward for the British player is a third round tie against another lefty in the shape of Thomaz Bellucci.
