By Erik Gudris | @atntennis | Friday, July 7, 2023
Once again, Stefanos Tsitsipas needed five sets in a marquee matchup to keep his Wimbledon hopes alive.
This time it was against former two-time Wimbledon champion Andy Murray was hoping instead to perhaps pull off another deep run at his favorite event.
The No. 5 seed Tsitsipas completed the comeback 7-6(3), 6-7(2), 4-6, 7-6(3), 6-4 victory on Friday in a match that spanned a total of 4 hours, 40 minutes and was suspended on Thursday night due to the local town curfew.
When they left famed Centre Court on Thursday, the 36-year-old Murray found himself leading by two sets to one and appeared poised to perhaps pull off the victory in front of the partisan British crowd.
“I don't know, to be honest. I'm obviously very disappointed just now," a disappointed Murray said afterward. "Yeah, obviously you never know how many opportunities you're going to get to play here. Yeah, the defeats maybe, yeah, feel a bit tougher.
"But, to be honest, every year that Wimbledon's not gone how I would like, it's been hard.”
The match resumed on a sizzling hot afternoon with both men right away playing at the same high level as the night before.
When asked later if the extended break between sets helped him at all, Tsitsipas said, “It did not help me that much. You are dealing with a lot of things. You are dealing with Andy Murray at the other side of the net. He can make it a marathon and I had to work extra hard.”
Tsitsipas probably needed the break considering he had to defeat Dominic Thiem in five sets the day before in his opening round.
Despite Murray’s efforts to get the Centre Crowd more involved, Tsitsipas kept his composure and stayed level with his opponent right into a fourth set tiebreak.
Tsitsipas made his move midway in the tiebreak when he won a pivotal 30-shot rally that ended with him smashing a winner to earn the first mini-break.
From there, Tsitsipas closed out the set 7-6(3) with a volley winner.
The biggest challenge Tsitsipas faced all match was not being able to break Murray’s serve.
That all changed in the third game of the final set.
At 1-all, Tsitsipas hosted up a clever volley lob that went over Murray’s head and landed in. Murray then tossed in a double fault on the next point to fall behind 0-40.
Though Murray managed to save two break point, Tsitsipas converted on his third chance at 30-40 when Murray netted.
With the key service break, Tsitsipas never let go of his momentum down the stretch. Murray did manage to stay in touch down the stretch and forced Tsitsipas to serve for it at 5-4.
Murray saved two match points against him to force things to deuce in the final game. Yet it was Tsitsipas who fired down an ace on his third match point, his 17th of the match, to secure the satisfying five set victory.
Tsitsipas is now into the third round where he will next face Serbia’s Laslo Djere.