Andy Murray sets up Kyle Edmund clash with only his second victory of 2018 at Citi Open
The former world No1 has dropped to a career-low 839 in the world and his team had warned his return from hip surgery for the hard-court season would not be plain sailing.
And so it proved. At times, Murray looked laboured, his movement occasionally tentative, his past ability to dominate the points not as consistent as he would have liked in a 3-6, 6-4, 7-5 win over Mackenzie McDonald.
But the nature of victory will not unduly concern him, more the fact he has another vital win against a rising star of the men’s game, who reached the fourth round of Wimbledon, which Murray had opted to forego to give himself more time to get his game back up to speed.
“It was a tough, tough match,” he said, coming off court after two hours and 37 minutes. “It could have gone either way. Obviously if you lost a match like that, it’s a tough one. It is just nice to get through. I enjoyed getting through that one. You could see it in the celebration."
In the first set of only his fourth match this year, he struggled for any fluency on his serve and his 23-year-old opponent comfortably won the set.
But a more obdurate Murray returned to the court for the second set and had five match points to win at 5-4 on serve in the deciding set.
Allowing himself to be haunted by a defeat at the same venue three years ago when serving to Teymuraz Gabashvili for the match, he capitulated and had to wait three more games for two more match points, the second of which he converted.
The importance of the victory was obvious, a pumped-up Murray twice screaming “yeah” in celebration to set up another encounter with Kyle Edmund in the next round.
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