New-look Murray through to round two

 

Originally published on: 17/01/12 11:54

Andy Murray set up a second round clash with Frenchman Edouard Roger-Vasselin at the Australian Open after safely negotiating Ryan Harrison.

The Scot dropped the opening set against the highly-rated 19-year-old but carefully managed the heat and the remainder of the encounter to claim a 4-6 6-3 6-4 6-2 triumph.

“I thought he was good,” said Murray of the young American. “He serves well. He’s quick. He does everything pretty solid. There wasn’t one thing in particular that was incredible, but there wasn’t too many holes in his game, which, you know, if you want to be a good player, you can’t have any.”

The heat has soared over the past couple of days in Melbourne and Murray, whose superior fitness often tells in extreme heat, established control in the second set once he had got used to the conditions.

“It was incredibly hot today,” said Murray. “Balls bouncing up very high, whereas is has been cool, and this court particularly reacts a lot with the temperature. It took me a little while to adjust to that.”

As for his first Grand Slam encounter in front of new coach Ivan Lendl, Murray revealed his new mentor was ‘very happy’ with his display.

“He (Lendl) understands how you might be feeling at the start of a Grand Slam, what it’s like to play against someone that you haven’t played against, what it’s like playing in different conditions, how you feel in really warm conditions.

“It’s just good to have someone there that, you know, understands all of those things. Someone maybe without the experience might walk in and be like: ‘what the hell were you doing in the first set? What were you playing the first first six or seven games?’ You know, he understands the feelings that you go through.”

Particularly evident from the encounter was that there was a significant reduction in outburts in the direction of Murray’s team, with the Scot seemingly biting his tongue on occasion when certain points had not gone his way.

As the old saying goes, a change is as good as a rest and all that. Are there six more wins to come in the same mould?

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