By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Tuesday February 23, 2020
Andy Murray fell in his opening-round match at the Open Sud de France in Montpellier on Tuesday.
Photo Source: AP
Andy Murray has fallen at the first hurdle at this week's Open Sud de France in Montpellier. The former World No.1 dropped his first ATP match of the season, falling to Belarusian Egor Gerasimov, 7-6(8), 6-1 on Tuesday in France.
Murray was knocking on the door in the opening set, after climbing back from a break down and actually earning a set point at 6-7 (after saving two set points himself) in the tiebreaker. But Gerasimov, ranked 83, rallied to nab the breaker (on his fourth set point) and then stormed out to a 5-0 lead in the second set against a visibly frazzled Murray.
He would hang on to notch the victory, setting up a second-round tilt with either Jannik Sinner or Aljaz Bedene.
"I just wanted to try my best today because I was playing with a great champion,” Gerasimov said after his victory. "It was a big experience and I'm happy.”
Murray, ranked 121, was playing his first match of the season after missing the Australian Open due to a positive Covid-19 test result that left him unable to get to Melbourne in time to carry out the mandatory quarantine.
Murray, 33, won four rounds at the Biella Challenger in Italy two weeks ago, but fell in the final to World No.212 Ilya Marchenko. He took home $4,447 for his troubles, as well as some confidence.
But that confidence didn’t carry him forward against the hard-hitting Gerasimov today.
The Brit will be back in action next week at the ABN Amro in Rotterdam, where he has also taken a wild card. He will join a star-studded field that includes Rafael Nadal, Daniil Medvedev, Andrey Rublev, Matteo Berrettini, Gael Monfils and Stan Wawrinka.