Murray falls but insists ‘breakthrough’ is close

Andy Murray fully believes his post-injury breakthrough “will happen”, despite suffering another early defeat at the Vienna Open.

He fell in straight sets to up-andcoming Spanish teenager Carlos Alcaraz, in what was his fourth second-round exit from his past six tournaments.

It followed an impressive win over Hubert Hurkacz on Monday, which was Murray’s first victory over a top-10 opponent in 14 months. As has been the case since his return from a groin injury earlier in the year, following up that milestone win proved a step too far.

But the former world No1 is confident he has it in him to go deep at tournaments.

“I’m not going to keep losing in the second or third round of tournaments, I will get better,” Murray said after his match. “I will break through, in one week or two weeks or a few months – it will happen. Obviously, I would like it to be happening quicker than it is.

“[Alcaraz] did play extremely well, he’s a young player, but he’s still a top player. It’s going to be tough. If I continue, build up a little bit more consistency and be more clinical and ruthless then I’ll start winning more and have some deep runs. It will happen sooner rather than later.”

Murray beat Alcaraz just over two weeks ago, in a three-set thriller at Indian Wells, but back on European soil the Spaniard was less errorprone.

In a match that produced 25 break-point opportunities, and slugfest games lasting over 10 minutes each, Murray lost his lead in the second set to succumb 6-3, 6-4.

The first set was tighter than the scoreline suggests, Murray and 42nd-ranked Alcaraz exchanging two breaks of serve in only the first four games, which lasted more than half an hour. But Alcaraz then broke Murray two more times, a particularly blistering return helping him to close out the high-level first set.

Murray was still in it though. He went up a break early in the second, and held off two challenges from Alcaraz, using his signature lob and a backspin drop shot to help guide him through to a 4-2 advantage. But Alcaraz was impossible to swat away. He broke back with a firecracker forehand winner and eventually set up match point with a huge cross-court forehand. Though Alcaraz was at his best, three-time major champion Murray admitted he is running out of reasons as to why he is struggling to secure consecutive wins.

“Most of the players that I’ve been coming up against and the matches that I’ve lost in recent months have been right at the top of the game,” he said. “Certainly in the last couple of months … I have to cut myself some slack. But I think now it’s getting to that stage where that’s not really a valid reason any more. I need to be more ruthless, that’s what I did when I was at my best.”

Murray will next play in Stockholm in two weeks’ time and, though he said the door remained open for him to join the British team for the Davis Cup in late November, he reiterated it was “not something he was planning on”.