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Andy Murray was due on court in the wee sma’hours of last night aiming to reach the third round of a Grand Slam for the first time since Wimbledon 2017.

On the other side of the net Canadian 15th seed Felix Augeraliassime was scheduled to be his opponent in the US Open after a nail-biting first round win over Japan’s Yoshihito Nishioka.

Murray’s back-from-the-dead five-set win saw him fight back from two sets and a break down in a match lasting four hours 39 minutes.

Nishioka took the first two sets 6-4 6-4 before breaking Murray early in the third. The Dunblane ace broke back and won the set on a tie-break, repeating it in set four.

When Nishioka broke early in the fifth, it looked like Murray’s brave effort was going to be in vain but his will-to-win was still evident and he hit back immediately – and grabbed the win on his first match point at 5-4.

“That was by far the most tennis I’ve played since the Aussie Open in 2019,” said Murray afterwards.

“I went in and asked to use the ice bath as soon as I got into the locker room and thankfully they allowed it because I needed it.

“One of the benefits of being old as an athlete is that I have experience playing those sorts of matches and things I can do to help me recover better. I know I’ll need to get an early night’s sleep and try and sleep as much as I can.”

Big brother Jamie will be in doubles action alongside partner Neal Skupski and will be buoyed by last week’s showing in the Western and Southern Open when they reached the final before losing to Spaniard Pablo

Carreno Busta and

Australian Alex De Minaur.

They’ve been handed a tough first round tie against No 4 seeds Ivan

Dodig (Croatia) and

Filip Polasek (Slovakia), which was also due on court last night.

He won’t be able to go for a third consecutive mixed doubles title with

Bethanie Matteksands (USA) after the event was cancelled.

BINOS WILL POCKET AT LEAST £20K