Andy Murray will face fourth seed Alexander Zverev in the next round after defeating Italy's Lorenzo Sonego in dramatic fashion in Doha; Liam Broady also progressed to the last-16 after winning a final-set tie-break
Tuesday 21 February 2023 12:12, UK
Andy Murray battled back from a set down and survived three match points to claim a dramatic tie-break victory over Lorenzo Sonego at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open in Doha.
Murray, a wildcard for the ATP 250 tournament, claimed a 4-6 6-1 7-6 (7-4) in his first competitive appearance since his impressive run at last month's Australian Open.
Sonego claimed the opening set before Murray responded to break twice in the next to take the last-32 clash to a final-set decider.
Murray then survived three match points to hold serve in the tenth game and take the game to a tie-break, where he battled back from losing the opening three points to snatch victory.
"It was really tough," said Murray post-match. "We never played together, or practised with each other before, so I didn't know exactly how the match was going to go and it took a while to get used to his game.
"He's a very aggressive player, takes a lot of chances, but it's high-risk tennis. He rolled the dice at the end, and it looked like he had the momentum. But thankfully in the mid-part of that tie-break he made a couple of mistakes and I managed to turn it around."
Murray's victory is the second tournament in a row where he has needed a final-set tie-break to progress through the opening round, having saved a match point to defeat Matteo Berrettini to start his Australian Open campaign.
The 35-year-old will now face fourth seed Alexander Zverev - who received a bye through the first round - in the last-16 on Wednesday.
The German is on the road to recovery after snapping three ligaments in his ankle during last year's French Open semi-final against Rafael Nadal.
"He's obviously one of the top players in the world," said Murray of Zverev, against whom he holds a 2-1 head-to-head lead.
"He had a bad injury at [Roland Garros] last year and is just coming back from that. He's going to be improving every week just now.
"He's not quite at the level he was back in the middle of last year, but injuries like that take time. It will be another great match, hopefully I can keep building on this one."
Fellow Briton Liam Broady also came through a final-set tie-break against Ukrainian Oleksii Krutykh to win 6-0 4-6 7-6 (7-2), setting up a second-round meeting with former US Open champion Daniil Medvedev.
Sixth seed Dan Evans begins his singles campaign against Finland's Emil Ruusuvuouri on Tuesday, having partnered Jonny O'Mara to a 6-5 7-5 10-7 victory over Ilya Ivashka and Andrey Rublev in the opening round of the doubles.
