Andy Murray fights past Richard Gasquet at Roland Garros
Andy Murray has fought his way through to the second round of the French Open with a come-from-behind 4-6, 6-7(5), 6-4, 6-2, 6-1 victory over Richard Gasquet.
While for two sets it looked as though Murray’s nightmare first round match-up against the former top-10 player might prove to be his undoing at Roland Garros, in clinching the win the Scot has gone a long way to proving he’s rediscovered the form that could take him deep into the second week of the Grand Slam.
It was a match the battle-weary Gasquet would have preferred to have taken place a day later as he sought extra time to recover from his title winning run at the Open de Nice Cote D’Azur over the weekend, but was denied his request by French Open organisers, but one where nevertheless the Frenchman started the better.
That one-handed backhand in full flight, the former world No. 7 created three break point opportunities in the fourth game of the match only for Murray to refuse to hand Gasquet his serve.
Gasquet finally gained reward for effort when he converted his fourth break point of the match to take the first set 6-4.
The world No. 45, playing with flair and some superb touch, fought back from 0-30 in the first game of the next set to ensure momentum remained on his side of the net.
After briefly appearing as he was flirting with the idea of giving up the fight early in the second set, the Scot found himself with a break point chance against Gasquet’s serve at 2-2 but the Frenchman pulled out one of a number of a devil-may-care backhand winners for the match to deny Murray the break, and then went on to take a 3-2 lead in the second as games remained on serve.
That’s the way it continued through to the tiebreak, although Gasquet had the chance to snatch a break at 6-5, which Gasquet began with an ace and ended with a two set lead over the Australian Open runner-up.
If Murray was going to extend his stay at Roland Garros beyond the second day of play, he was going to have to pull off a comeback victory in the same mould as the one he managed in the fourth round at Wimbledon in 2008, where the world No. 4 turned the same deficit into a five set victory in a touch under four hours.
As the match wore on into the third set and both players at times looked the worse for wear as the match ground towards the three-hour mark, it was Murray who secured the break to serve for the set at 5-3. In a match where service breaks had hitherto been a rare gem, Gasquet immediately returned the favour to Murray, as he sought to force his way to victory in straight sets.
The fourth seed, however, sealed the set with a third consecutive break as Gasquet’s exhausting run to the Nice title, and the leg problem he suffered in the final, started to take their toll.
Massages on Gasquet’s troublesome leg before the beginning of the fifth set could not help the Frenchman regain momentum or recapture the exuberance he’d displayed earlier in the match, as Murray began to take a stranglehold of Suzanne Lenglen Court, finally sealing the victory with an ace.
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