Andy’s the last Brit in Paris again
After the brief frisson of excitement caused by having five British singles players in the french Open it is back to the familiar territory of Andy Murray being the sole survivor.
Amid a french Open day that saw Heather Watson lose, Serena Williams live dangerously and Novak Djokovic suffer a brief injury scare, the 28-year-old Scot was left standing alone — GB-wise it has been that way in every major he has entered for the past nine years now.
Not that it was an entirely comfortable passage for the British men’s No 1, who endured a mid-match wobble and got two time warnings before prevailing 6-2, 4-6, 6-4, 6-1 in two and a half hours over Joao Sousa.
Sousa is managed by the same people who look after Jose Mourinho and jokes that ‘I am not the special one’, but he played to an impresimpressive level for a long spelll and gave his opponent a decent ent workout.
for a while it seemed that Murray might get sucked into the kind of attritional battle that can sap the strength for future challenges — a problem that has afflicted him before at t Grand Slams — but he justst about got out quickly kly enough.
He needs to remain sharp, for next up is the vibrant 20-year- old talent of Australian Nick Kyrgios, who got a free pass yesterday after Yorkshire’s Kyle edmund withdrew due to a strained stomach muscle.
No shrinking violet, the extrovert world No 30 is likely to give him a sterner test tomorrow than he did at the Australian Open in January.
On a relatively chill and breezy day Murray did not relish the sluggish conditions on Court Philippe Chatrier and nearly got into trouble when Sousa stepped up the aggression towards the end of the second set.
the two time violations for delaying his serve were unusual for Murray, the first coming in the course of being broken for 3-5. As ever with this issue, the problem is complicated by the chronic inconsistency of umpires.
‘they were showing a replay (on the big screen) of the second one but I’ve got no complaints,’ he said. ‘It’s a MIKE DICKSON Tennis Correspondent reports from Paris good rule and there were a couple of occasions when I was a bit slow.’
Luckily Murray plucked out some strong serves when faced with two break points at 1-2 in the second, and after that the danger passed like the scudding clouds overhead.
Watson held a surprising 4-0 record over the gifted Sloane Stephens before yesterday but the American, ranked five places above her at 40, is acquiring a greater solidity this year and won 6-2, 6-4 in 70 minutes. the Channel Islander wore strapping on her right arm but she admitted that any soreness made little difference and put the defeat more down to her opponent’s heavy hitting. She is yet to manage a significantsignifi breakthrough in the these major events. Djokovic gave succour to theth rest of the field when heh called the physio on in hish 6-1, 6-4, 6-4 victory over Luxembourg’s Gilles Muller.
After being tended to in the hip and groin area he said: ‘thankfully it’s notno a concern for the next match.mat the court was a bit slipperyslippe and I had a couple of slides tthat were unusual. I jammed the hip a bit but it’s nothing serious.’
Women’s top seed Williams survived a scare before coming through 5-7, 6-3, 6-3 against German Anna-Lena friedsam, and now faces ex-world No 1 Victoria Azarenka. She later branded her performance ‘unprofessional’ and said that she was nervous after going out at the same stage the previous year, denying that her right elbow is an issue.
Caroline Wozniacki was the biggest casualty, downed in straight sets by Julia Goerges.
Australian thanasi Kokkinakis, 19, and Croatian Borna Coric, 18, beat Bernard tomic and tommy robredo respectively, in five sets to become the first teenagers in seven years to make the men’s third round in Paris. Very much two names for the future.