Andy Murray’s Grand Slam experience shone through as he fought back from the brink of elimination to progress to the third round of the French Open on Wednesday with a five-set win over Mathias Bourgue.
The British No.1 lost eight consecutive games to the French wildcard to drop the second and third sets, before finding his feet once again to comfortably take the fourth.
29-year-old Murray took just over three-and-a-half hours to put the match to bed, eventually edging out world number 169 Bourgue, appearing in his first major, 6-2, 2-6, 4-6, 6-2, 6-3.
The Scot was full of praise for his 22-year-old opponent, but insists his determination did not waver despite the difficulties he faced.
“He was excellent,” said Murray. “He was the one dictating a lot of the points and making me run a lot, fighting right until the end.
“I had a big lead in the fifth set, but he’s going to have a fantastic future for sure.
“It’s the first time we’ve played against each other but he was very good.
“He started playing unbelievably and I was finding it hard to win points, let alone the games.
“It was a very big turnaround. I’ve played these matches many times, sometimes your opponent can lose a little bit of concentration or maybe play a bad game here or there, I just tried to fight through right to the end.”
Murray squeezed through to the second round after coming from behind on Tuesday to defeat Radek Stepanek in a decider, after bad light had suspended play on Monday.
And after three days on court in Paris, Murray admits it is time for a well-earned break before taking to the clay once again in the third round.
“I don’t know who I play in the next match [Murray faces big-serving Croatian Ivo Karlovic] but I need to go and rest,” he said.
“It’s been a tough, tough few days and I’m going to have to recover extremely well and if I’m to go far in this tournament, I can’t play too many more matches like this so I’m hoping in the next one I play I can win a little bit faster.”
Earlier in the day, Heather Watson suffered defeat at the hands of Svetlana Kuznetsova to see her French Open campaign end on the fourth day of competition.
Watson, who qualified for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games by beating Nicole Gibbs, lost 6-1 6-3 to the 13th-seeded Russian – having her serve broken four times in the process – and admits it just wasn’t her day.
“She was just better than me today,” she said. “I tried to stick with her but a few points made the difference.”
Elsewhere, Kyle Edmund lost in straight sets to American 15th seed John Isner – going down 6-2, 6-2, 6-2.
Sportsbeat 2016