Andy Murray rolls back the years in Stefanos Tsitsipas thriller on night of Wimbledon drama
Play ended just shy of the 11pm curfew with Murray leading a thrilling match 6-7, 7-6, 6-4 and with momentum on his side for a place in the third round.
The body of the 36-year-old does not recover as quickly as it once did so the two-time Wimbledon champion will be hoping to get quickly back into its rhythm. For Tsitsipas too, there were physical question marks having played five sets in his first-round match against Dominic Thiem, which ended the previous evening.
The one certainty is that this won’t go deep into a second night, although judging by the tight nature of this duel to date the Briton might yet be hard pressed to achieve his pre-tournament wish of getting back to his Surrey home for his four children’s bedtime.
Today with blue skies and bright sunshine, the roof will remain open, last night its closure meant a cacophony of noise from the 15,000 inside Centre Court, who revelled in Murray rolling back the years. The only problem was this match’s denouement had to be cut short.
Before that point, it had everything from the Murray playbook. After losing a tight first set, there were the remonstrations and recriminations towards his box. Then there was the fightback, the scampering for every shot and even the late drama as he slipped and fell late into the third set.
He let out a scream which chillingly reverberated around the stadium and clutched his groin, those delighting in the previous three sets looking on anxiously. In true Murray fashion, he then immediately looked fine, won the final point of the evening and the set, and time was called for the night.
It was captivating stuff from the very outset. Tsitsipas played near perfect tennis for much of the first two sets, striking the ball so cleanly with his forehand that it seemed remarkable Murray somehow hung on to his coat-tails.
Tsitsipas thought he’d won the first set earlier than he did when the ball was wrongly given in, Murray challenged it and the point was overturned. It led to a shout of “let’s go”.
Hopes that it could give him the necessary lift in the tiebreak proved unfounded as Tsitsipas got the first mini-break and had the upper hand to take the set with an 18-shot rally after 58 minutes. The fact the Greek had hit 21 winners to Murray’s 11 was perhaps the tale of that set with the Scot hitting just four unforced errors.
Andy Murray | Wimbledon 2023
That dropped set briefly deflated or at least quietened those in the stands with Murray bidding to become only the eighth player in history to win 200 Grand Slam singles matches.
In that second set, Tsitsipas didn’t initially drop his guard, the Murray chuntering increasingly crept in and, with it, the usual self-flagellation, particularly when he missed out on a half-chance and Tsitsipas levelled for 4-4.
But as the set wore on, the first odd error seemed to creep in from Tsitsipas: a skewed backhand or a forehand too long. He twice found himself at 30-30 on serve but held on to force a second tiebreak, which his opponent this time dominated.
A forehand into the net gave Murray the first mini-break, a similar shot enabling him to go 5-2 up. When he converted the first of four set points, the crowd were on their feet as Murray roared at them.
For the first time in the night, Tsitsipas’ level and intensity properly dropped, Murray seeing the opening with his first break point of the night after more than two hours in game one of the third set.
He duly took it and, while the rest of the set was as tight as the first two, he held on and just about held his body together to take the lead into today’s resumption.
