Andy Murray the Revenant wins another collection match at Australian Open with epic comeback on Kokkinakis

Epic. Historical. Legendary. There aren’t enough adjectives to describe what he did Andy Murray in his match against Thanasi Kokkinakisfor the second round of Australian Open 2023. The Scotsman fought back to 0-2 in sets and 2-5 in the third set to beat the Australian 4-6, 6-7 (4-7), 7-6 (7-5), 6-3 and 7- 5 and enters the third round of the Australian Grand Slam. The duel, which lasted five hours and 45 minutes and finished just after 4:06am on Friday in Melbourne, became the second longest in the tournament’s history, surpassed only by the 2012 final in which Rafael Nadal Y Novak Djokovic there was no respite for five hours and 53 minutes.

The British company is even more sized if we remember that four years ago, in this same tournament, he tearfully announced the end of his career due to a problem with his right hip, which even prevented him from walking. Who today plays with a metal hip. Who, at the age of 35, held his own against a very talented rival nine years his junior. And that, although he is catching up and his tennis is obviously intact, in the last two seasons he has also had other physical problems that have not allowed him to play regularly.

Do we need more seasonings to brand his triumph as titanic? There they are: Murray had just won another great match in the first round, in which he beat the Italian 6-3, 6-3, 4-6, 6-7 (7-9) and 7-6 (10 -6). Matthew Berrettini, 14th in the world and also nearly ten years younger. That duel, in which he faced a match point in the fifth quarter, lasted four hours and 49 minutes. Fatigue? The Scotsman doesn’t seem to know that word.

Still not enough? It is therefore worth reviewing the statistics of the match. Kokkinakis, who bet on aggressive tennis, scored 37 aces, against the Scotsman’s only 10, and finished with 102 winners, 33 more than his opponent. But not even this was enough to tame the spirit and the competitive claw of the former number one and three times Grand Slam champion.

“I don’t know how I did it”, he commented smiling a few minutes after sealing the win. “It’s amazing that we managed to come back after such a result. Thanasi was serving amazingly and impressively hitting with his drive. But I just started playing better and better as the match went on. And yes, all I can to say is that I have a big heart”.

The Australian, who sits on the 159th step of the standings, was superior in the first two sets, which he won without major problems. Ed came to serve for the game in the third, with the score 5-3 in his favor. But he made a huge mistake: he gave his rival time and space to react.

When the local crowd was already preparing to celebrate the arrival of their player in the third round, Murray began his comeback. The first big indication that the Scotsman wasn’t going to go down without a fight came early in the third set, when he took an incredible point, which caused his opponent in the row to break his racket.

It was in the third game, with Kokkinakis leading 2-0. The Briton returned his serve as best he could, stopped at the back of the field and began to return everything that the player from Adelaide threw at him, running from one end of the field to the other, resorting to slices and saving balloons to save smash and gliding as in Parisian brick dust.

It was a real rally, more like a ping pong match than tennis because of the pace and speed that the ball took, accompanied by exclamations coming from the stands. After failing time and time again in his attempt to close the point, Kokkinakis gradually lowered the intensity, lost concentration and left the ball in the net, just before bursting his racquet against the row floor. On the other hand, Murray celebrated with all his small victory, knowing that he had won much more than a point or a game, that he got back into the game.

“I’ve always loved to compete, I always show my emotions when I play and I’ve been criticized a lot for it over the years, but that’s me,” he recalled after the match.

And although he had to wait until the tie break to take possession of the set, that point was a before and after: it gave him peace of mind knowing that the comeback was not a utopia and it was a blow to his rival.

Not even the hassle of competing for so long could take Murray’s head. And that was sometimes quite annoying. When he had not yet taken possession of the third set, he was told: “What am I playing at 2 in the morning?”. And shortly after, after realizing he’d run out of bathroom breaks, he complained to the referee: “It’s disrespectful that the tournament keeps us here until 3am and we can’t even go pee. It’s a joke!”.

Nothing dulled it. He continued to fight, fight, looking for a way to defeat a rival who also did not give up, but was losing weight in front of the huge figure of the two-time Olympic champion.

In the 11th game of the fifth set, the Scot – who will now face the Spaniard Robert Baptist Agut (24th), delivered the coup de grace: he got a break that left him at 6-5 and then sealed the victory with his serve.

“I have experience returning from matches. I just trust that experience. That fight and love of the game, the competition and my respect for this event and the rivals is what drives me forward,” he said.

Five times finalist in Australia, but never champion (he lost four finals with Djokovic and the other with Federer), Murray gave another example of his qualities, the one that led him to earn a place among the greatest of all times (almost up to the legendary Big 3). At 35, with a metal hip, great tennis and incredible mental strength, he signed an epic comeback and celebrated with a guttural cry, which echoed throughout the early Melbourne morning. Historical.