No 1 Kyle is put in his place by comeback king Murray
It’s a long time since Andy Murray went into a match against a fellow Brit as the underdog but that may change in the near future after his performance against Kyle Edmund on Wednesday.
The 31 year-old Dunblane star is playing his third tournament after his hip surgery in January following on from appearances at Queen’s and Eastbourne before pulling out of Wimbledon.
It was at Eastbourne where current British No 1 Edmund ousted the present British No 21 Murray in straight sets.
But that victory was avenged at the Citi Open in Washington DC.
Murray gained the biggest win of his comeback, defeating Edmund 7-6, 1-6, 6-4 and he will be favourite to reach his first quarter-final in more than a year when he meets Romanian Marius Copil, who beat 14th seed Jeremy Chardy (France), in round three.
“It was much better, just in terms of the way I actually played the match.
“In the first match (against Mackenzie McDonald) I basically spent the whole match defending, I was playing quite far behind the baseline.
“And that’s not really how I want to be playing moving forward,” Murray said.
“Regardless of the result, we wanted to at least be dictating more points, trying to use my forehand, be closer to the baseline.
“I think I did that, especially in some of the important moments in the third set
“I was being more offensive. I was a lot happier with the way I approached the match.”
He showed glimpses of his best against Edmund, defending well but also dictating at time against the 23 year-old.
They traded breaks at the end of the first set but Murray pulled away to take the tie-break 7-4. Edmund, however, claimed the second 6-1 and things looked bleak for Murray.
The final set mirrored the first until Edmund served to stay in the match. He seemed to feel the pressure of playing against his hero and mentor, double-faulted at 30-30 before Murray won the next point.
●Big brother Jamie and Brazilian doubles partner Bruno Soares were due on court last night (Thursday) in a second-round tie against India’s Divaj Sharam and Artem Sitak, born in Russia but now playing in New Zealand.
The fourth-seeded Murray and Soares beat Karen Khachanov (Russia) and Lucas Pouille (France) 6-4 5-7 10-7 in round one.