“Why are we playing at 3am?” he shouted at one stage. Murray was simultaneously dialled into the match and horrified by its deeply anti-social nature. The whole kitbag, assembled so painstakingly over 20 years of elite tennis, was coming out to play. But there were also more net-rushes from Murray – 19 in the fourth set, for example, whereas the first had only seen four.
His key shot was the crosscourt backhand which pinned Kokkinakis back deep in his own territory and prevented him from dictating the rallies. Murray rediscovered the dead-eyed marksmanship we had seen against Berrettini, and finally began applying his gameplan. Even when the momentum shifted, his tennis didn’t fade away. Throughout the first two sets, Kokkinakis had been playing like a giant of the game, using his inside-out forehand to lash a succession of winners and serving like a siege gun. And then they spent the next three hours wrestling in the raging torrent below. If we think of Murray as a man hanging from a cliff by his fingertips, it was as if he had reached out and pulled Kokkinakis over with him.
Meanwhile, the flow of the match was switching directions. Murray cheekily suggested that Kokkinakis – who was extremely displeased – should have been sanctioned for an audible obscenity as well. Like a rottweiler, he locks his jaws around your leg and then refuses to let go.Ĭhair umpire Eva Asderaki was heavily involved around this stage, handing out a code violation to Kokkinakis for racket abuse and also giving him a warning for exceeding his allotted time. Kokkinakis smashed his racket in fury as Murray began to get that dogged look in his eye.
The match began to change in the third set, and the catalyst was a crazy conjuring act in which Murray returned four successive Kokkinakis smashes to steal a point he would have lost 999 times out of 1000. Recovery does seem to be an issue for Murray, since the insertion of his metal hip although he started to move far better as the clock moved into the small hours of Friday morning. The mood was reminiscent of his 2022 Australian Open, in which Murray defeated the seeded Nikoloz Basilashvili over five sets and then came unstuck against the unheralded Taro Daniel. He was constantly wringing his hands and grumbling at his player box, in a manner he had completely avoided during Tuesday night’s superb display. To continue the cricketing metaphor, Murray fed him too many juicy half-volleys.Īnd if Murray’s physical intensity was low, his body language was positively defeatist. He was so passive early on that Kokkinakis was able to settle into a pounding rhythm, slapping the ball around as confidently as one of England’s “Bazball” batsmen. For all his magnificence, Murray will regret the way he started.
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