Murray labours his way into French Open third round

Top seed Andy Murray advanced to the third round of the French Open on Thursday with a four set win over Martin Klizan. The 30-year-old Briton dropped the opening set but came back strongly to take the second and third.

Andy Murray needed four sets to beat the unseeded Slovakian Martin Klizan. RFI/Pierre-René Worms

But after an early break to Klizan in the fourth, last year’s beaten finalist was playing catchup.

Klizan served for the set at 5-3 up but fluffed his chance. Murray won the ensuing tiebreak seven points to three to set up a third round clash with Juan Martin Del Potro.
 

“He is one of the best players in the world when he's fit and healthy,” said Murray of his next opponent. “This year he's had a lot of tough draws. If you look at the matches that he's lost. So because of the ranking that he has, he's kind of in that bracket where he's met a lot of the top guys early on.”

Del Potro, who has missed the past three French Opens through injury, progressed after Nicolas Almagro retired from their second round match in the third set with a knee injury.

“I definitely feel like I'm capable of winning the match,” said Murray. “I'm playing way better than I was two weeks ago and the match against Klizan will have done me
a lot of good, because physically I pulled up well and felt good, so I will gain a lot of confidence from that.”

The last two encounters between Murray and del Potro have produced epics. Murray beat the Argentine last August in Rio to win the Olympic gold and Del Potro avenged the defeat in September with a five set win in the semi-final of the Davis Cup.