Murray’s Australian Open bid hangs in the balance
Grand slam hero locked in action against Kokkinakis in Melbourne
Andy Murray’s bid to advance at the Australian Open hung in the balance as he was in action in Melbourne yesterday.
The Dunblane ace faced Australian Thanasi Kokkinakis in the second round yesterday afternoon and he trailed 2-1 as the Observer went to print.
The 35-year-old started brightly, holding his serve in the opening game to set out his stall.
Kokkinakis fought back to level the scores and from there the opening set proved an edgy affair.
The match proved to be as close as many predicted and it was the Australian who landed the first major blow – breaking the Murray serve to go 3-2 up.
From there, the pair held their serve and the 26-year-old wrapped up the set 6-4.
Into the second set, Murray refused to be beaten – holding his serve in the opening game of the set.
The game went back in forth, with the second set tied at 4-4.
However, Kokkinakis then broke the Murray serve to move into a 5-4 lead and serve for the set.
Battling Murray fought back though – he failed to capitalise on a break point, but when a second arrived he made no mistake, levelling the set at 5-5.
Murray then held his serve to move to a 6-5 lead.
Kokkinakis then levelled the set at 6-6 to take it to a tie break. The Australian then wrapped up the second set 7-6, winning the tie break 7-4
In the third set, Murray quickly fell two games behind.
Murray then fought back to 2-2 in the third and the Australian raced to a 5-2 lead.
Murray then pulled another couple of games back to make it 5-4 and put up some brilliant defensive play to put Kokkinakis under pressure.
With the serve, Murray fought to level the set, which he did, making it 5-5 in the third.
Kokkinakis then held his serve to lead 6-5 in the third. Murray then levelled at 6-6 as the third went to a tie break.
Batling Murray then came through the tie break victorious- to make it 2-1.
Murray previously overcame a thrilling five set victory over Italy’s number 13 seed Matteo Berrettini in the opening round.
The 35-year-old has been a losing finalist Down Under a staggering five times in his glittering career.
Winning a gruelling encounter in the opening round, Murray said: “I think I did very well to hang in at the end, because it could have got away from me with the way that he was serving and the way he was playing.”
Ahead of the showdown, Kokkinakis said: “Andy is someone I respect a great amount.
“Obviously he has been at the top of the game, and he can relate a little bit with the injury side of things. I missed a fair few years, and so has he, especially recently.
“He was someone when I came onto tour that was always willing to give some advice.”
Murray cruised past Kokkinakis in their lone tussle in the Davis Cup semi-finals in 2015, the season Kokkinakis achieved a career-high ranking of 69.
On that day in Glasgow, Murray won 93-per cent of his first-serve points and Kokkinakis tallied a mere 21 percent of his second-serve points. Murray saw plenty of second serves, since Kokkinakis’ firstserve percentage sagged at 50.