By Erik Gudris | Tuesday, July 31, 2018
Andy Murray needed seven match points before winning his first round match in D.C. well after
midnight.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Andy Murray summoned all his experience to earn his second match win since March 2017 at the Citi Open in Washington, D.C. Monday night.
Murray was forced to come from behind to defeat American MacKenzie McDonald 3-6, 6-4, 7-5 in his third event back from hip surgery. The match was Murray’s first since skipping Wimbledon a few weeks ago to give his hip more time to recover.
Murray, who served for the match late in the final set, was forced into extra games by the resilient McDonald. The long match reminded Murray of his opening round loss in D.C. three years ago.
"It was a tough, tough match," Murray said. "It could have gone either way. Obviously if you lose a match like that, it's a tough one. When I lost to (Teymuraz) Gabashvili here, I lost serving for the match, so I was thinking about that a little bit, too. It is just nice to get through."
The 23-year-old McDonald, who reached the fourth round of Wimbledon, outhit the former No. 1 throughout the first set as the American took the first set 6-3. Murray, by cutting down on his unforced errors, managed to take control of the second set and eventually force a decider.
Murray earned a decisive break at the start of the final set. As more errors came from McDonald, the more experienced Murray looked poised to close out the match when he served for it at 5-4.
Yet Murray would see five match points slip by in the tenth game as he failed to close out the match. McDonald broke Murray to the delight of the remaining crowd on hand.
Murray once again took the upper hand in the next game. McDonald, while trying to putaway a volley, was called by the umpire for reaching over the net. That set up another break point for Murray who converted for 6-5 when McDonald hit his shot long.
Murray, in the final game, finally served out the three set win on his seventh match point at almost 1 a.m. local time.
"I think I cut the unforced errors down. I started to serve a little bit better. I started off the match serving very poorly. I was struggling on my serve and didn't feel like I had much rhythm," Murray said. "I haven't played in the darkness or under the lights in a very long time and I felt like my rhythm was off on serve, my timing a little bit. That started to get a bit better as the match went on, so that helped. made a few less mistakes, but I would like to play better tennis in the next match."
Murray will next play Kyle Edmund in the second round.
Former World No. 3 Stan Wawrinka and his match against Donald Young was postponed due to rain.