Murray was sluggish in the opening match of his 12th Australian Open campaign. He had to survive three intense sets and needed nearly three hours to finally dispose of a resilient Illya Marchenko, 7-5, 7-6 (7-5), 6-2.
The top-seeded Scotsman had trouble with his second serve (25-of-58), which resulted into three break points for his Ukrainian foe. But Murray still capitalized on majority of his service games, winning 83 percent of his first serve points. He also converted 6-of-8 break point chances.
Clearly, Murray’s vast experience played a big factor in the first round. He’ll probably need to utilize some of it further against his next opponent, Andrey Rublev, whom Murray takes on for just the first time in his career.
The last time Murray lost in the second round of a major event was in the 2005 US Open.
Rublev’s only participating in his second career major tournament, and surely, he’s got to be already satisfied in reaching this stage — a second-round matchup with arguably the best tennis player in the world right now.
The 19-year-old Russian has never beaten a top-10 player in his young career, but he boasts a nasty serve that can probably cause problems for Murray early on. Rublev won 78 percent of his first serve points and smashed in 52 winners, including 19 aces, in his four-set victory over Yen-Hsun Lu in the opening round.
However, Rublev’s inexperience was also exposed there. He committed 50 unforced errors and didn’t do so well in his return game (45-of-117).
