Wimbledon: Andy Murray wins great late show

By ALIX RAMSAY
Published on 01/07/2012 00:25

LADIES and gentlemen, would the last Wimbledon contender leaving the building please turn out the lights. At 11.02pm, that man was Andy Murray.

Not only had he just beaten Marcos Baghdatis 7-5, 3-6, 7-5, 6-1 but he done it in the nick of time.

Had his three hour, 13 minute rollercoaster of a match gone on for just a few moments longer, the referee, Andrew Jarrett, would have pulled the plug on the proceedings. The local council demands that Wimbledon, nice shiny roof and lovely bright floodlights and all, closes for business at 11pm sharp. That is health and safety for you.

But with 26 minutes to go before the cut-off, Murray was leading Baghdatis by two sets to one. At long, long last, he had managed to restore some order to his game and some hope to his supporters. Until that point, he had been tight, tense and tentative. The free-flowing tennis that had carried him into the third round was suddenly shackled by nerves while a bizarre catalogue of falls – he could not keep his feet in the first couple of sets – and freak incidents had unsettled him. His mind was all over the place and his tennis, as a result, was littered with errors and missed opportunities.

Time and again, he manufactured break points, but even if he is one of the best returners in the game, he could not find a way to convert them. His backhand, normally a shot that he can land on a sixpence, simply refused to find the target time after time.

He could not even keep the spare tennis balls under control. Three times, the ball fell from his pocket and twice it cost him a point (once is deemed to be a misfortune, twice is regarded as carelessness). And the more misfortunes that befell him, the more frustrated he became. From looking like a form horse in the first week, the match was slipping away from him on Saturday night.

Baghdatis set off like a man possessed. It was the Cypriot playing with power and freedom and it was Murray who was trailing in his wake.

He was attacking the net, he was getting the extra fizz on his serve that Murray was searching for and he was cracking winners as Murray was still finding his feet. This was not how the script was supposed to play out.

The BBC, in its infinite wisdom, had decreed that the Scot would be last on Centre Court. In its desperate search for viewers, it was willing to put Murray’s chances of progressing in the tournament at risk. Had the match not finished, Murray would have had to finish the third round encounter on Monday, played his delayed fourth round on Tuesday and then, potentially, his quarter final on Wednesday. And all this while everyone else in the draw was home and hosed.

Both men knew that time was of the essence, and yet both knew that at some point the match would have to be stopped in order that the roof could be closed and the air conditioning system brought up to speed – a process that takes more than 30 minutes from start to finish. At 9.04pm, they were sitting a set apiece and playing with the speed of setting cement. This was not a good time to go and sit in the locker room for half an hour of thumb twiddling.

With that in mind, Murray wasted no time once the fourth set began.

From being tight and frustrated for much of the match, he finally allowed himself to go on the attack. That brought him a break of serve in the second game. Could it be possible? Could he finish Baghdatis off before 11pm. He was going to bust a gut to try.

At 4-1 up – and with eight minutes to go before the lights went out – he sprinted to his chair for the change of ends. Gulping down a swig of water, he asked the umpire, Steve Ullrich, if they had time for another game. Yes, they had. Murray was just eight points from a place in the fourth round – or, potentially, he was 36 hours away from being allowed back to finish Baghdatis off. Baghdatis, unsurprisingly, took his time but not amount of time wasting was going to stop the Scot from finishing the job.

He broke the Cypriot for a 5-1 lead – just four points away. A packed Centre court held its breath – the clock struck 11pm. Witching hour. Jarrett hid behind the backstop, walkie talkie in hand and a look of sheer terror on his face.

Murray stood on the baseline and began. It took two minutes, four points and one ace – Murray was through.

The council had been appeased and despite the best efforts of the BBC to make a hash of things, Murray had survived.