Australian Open 2023: Andy Murray saves Match Point, beats Matteo Berrettini in a five-set thriller

Andy Murray registered a thrilling victory over Italy’s Matteo Berrettini as he won by 6-3, 6-3, 4-6, 6-7(7), 7-6(10-6) at the Rod Laver Arena on Tuesday. The humdinger contest lasted for four hours and 49 minutes as it went down to the wire.

This was Murray’s first top-20 win at a Slam since 2017. The Brit won the first two sets convincingly as the Italian looked flat. However, the 2022 Australian Open semifinalist brought his A-game in the next two sets to achieve parity in the contest.

The fifth and final set was taken to a tiebreaker but not before Murray had to save a match point on his serve. The veteran then took a comprehensive lead of 5-0 in the tiebreaker and eventually came out as a deserving winner.

Murray admitted he was tired after a marathon match but he was extremely proud of his performance against the Italian.

“I’ll be feeling this evening and tomorrow, but right now I’m just unbelievably happy, very proud of myself,” Murray said in an on-court interview.

“I’ve put a lot of work into the past few months with my team here to give me the opportunity to perform on stadiums like this and in matches like this against players like Matteo, and it paid off tonight.”

The Briton admitted that Berrettini was serving really well and they played a really good match in the end.

“That’s the first time I’ve ever played one of those 10-point tie-breaks. It’s a bit different. When you’re up 6/1, or 7/1 or whatever, it feels like you’re still quite far away,” Murray said. “He came back really strong and I was just a bit lucky at the end with the net cord.”

“I think at the end some of the tennis was really good. It felt like that playing, I don’t know what it looked like,” he continued

“He was serving unbelievably and he’s a brilliant competitor as well, one of the best competitors on the Tour. He always fights right to the end, so I did well to get through.”

Murray could either face Fabio Fognini or home favorite Thanasi Kokkinakis in the second round.