NEW YORK—“I’m trying my nuts off, man. I just feel awful.” So said Andy Murray to a disappointed fan during the changeover after the first game of the third set of his second-rounder with Robin Haase. At the time, it was it was difficult to tell whether Murray was indeed ill, or just embarrassed by his play. He had the dropped the first set in a tiebreaker and played a strangely listless second set (even by Murray’s hangdog standards) that he handed to Haase, 6-2. Murray seemed to be playing in a fog, and would admit after the match to feeling sluggish through the first two frames. But after getting an early break in the third set to go up 2-1, Murray looked up to the sky, flashed his canines, and let out a primal scream of “Come On!” It was 1:46 into the match, but Andy Murray had finally woken up.
Haase was clearly the more aggressive and sharper of the two in gaining his lead. The Dutchman owns the victory in the pair’s only previous meeting (Rotterdam, in 2008) and currently sits at a career-high ranking of No. 41. But he would be a willing accomplice in Murray’s escape. As Murray loosened up and gained confidence, Haase withered. He became sloppy and impatient, possibly due to a hamstring injury he had treated after losing the third set, 6-2. The unforced errors continued to mount—15 in just six games for Haase—as Murray rolled a bagel in the fourth.
Haase took another injury timeout, this time on his lower back. It seemed to do little good as Murray raced out to a 4-0 lead in the fifth. Give Murray credit: Hurt or not, he didn’t allow Haase a sniff of the finish line, instead stretching his lead. That is, of course, until he got tight in fifth, Haase found his form, and both breaks vanished into a 4-4 tie. Haase played a poor service game, spraying several errors, and once again Murray went up a break. He served out the match, but not without the drama of several deuce points and an overturned call on the first match point. But it wouldn’t be a Murray match without gratuitous angst.
It wasn’t a performance for the Brit’s time capsule, but he did well to record his sixth career comeback from two sets down (6-7 (5), 2-6, 6-2, 6-0, 6-4). Murray had patches of fine play and did some of his trademark retrieving. One point early in the fifth, he chased down two overheads and belted a running forehand up the line for a winner that should make SportsCenter’s Top 10. And while he was broken six times, Murray’s first serve was nonetheless very effective. He notched 21 aces and won 78 percent of his first-serve points. The second serve, however, was a gaping hole in his armor. It averaged just 84 MPH and in the first two sets combined, Murray won only seven of 34 second-serve points. If Murray is going to end his reputation as a Grand Slam bridesmaid at this tournament, he has got to find a way to improve that part of his game.
—Jon Levey