Australian Open: Murray defeats Berrettini in five sets, breezes into second round

Andy Murray is through to the second round at Melbourne after upsetting 13th seed Matteo Berrettini in five sets.

The game, which lasted almost five hours on the Rod Laver Arena, saw the fifth set dragged into a tie-break in which Murray won 9-6.

Murray, a former world No.1 ranked player, won the first two sets 6-3 6-3 before Berrettini came storming back to take sets three and four 6-4 7-6. The fourth was on a knife edge but Berrettini remained composed and won a third set point at 8-7 to force a decider after three and a half hours.

Both players served well in the first nine games of the fifth set, and Murray needed to hold his serve in the 10th game to take the game to a tiebreak. Murray went on to win the fifth set 7-6 and set up a meeting against Aussie Thanasis Kokkinakis, who is ranked 110 in the world.

“Tonight I need to give myself some credit because the last few years have been tough,” he said in a courtside interview.

READ ALSO: Wimbledon Final: Djokovic v Berrettini: Looking to 20 or to the very first

“I stayed strong and I deserved to win. I was impressed with myself, which again is not something as I’m hard on myself usually,” the 35-year-old Scot admitted.

It was a closely fought match as reflected in the match stats as Murray won 166 points compared to Berrettini’s 161 even though Berrettini showed his power service with 31 aces compared to 10 for Murray. But the Italian will be disappointed with his 59 unforced errors, which tilted the match in Murray’s favour.

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