After producing two crackling contests for the Center court crowd, two time Wimbledon Champion Andy Murray entered the arena for the third time as expectations were riding high on him against a younger opponent, Denis Shapovalov.
The Canadian, who entered the third-round at SW19 without any fatigue as he was given a walkover in the second-round by Pablo Andujar. However, the crowd support will be with Murray and expectedly, there will be more pressure on Shapovalov to win the contest.
Let’s see how the match progressed.
Andy Murray lost the first set against Shapovalov despite a staggering comeback
Right from the first game, Shapovalov turned on his offensive game and began to hit freely from the baseline. Facing a lefty opponent for the first time in a while, the Brit took time to get used to the serve.
But it was already too late as the Canadian was all over Murray with his flashy winners and net approaches, and rose to a quick lead of 5-1 in the first set. Just when Shapovalov was about to run away with the set, the former world number one showed true grit and won 15 points in a row and took the score to 5-4.
In an intense tenth game, it was the Canadian’s turn to show the center court crowd how determined he was to win the match. After saving three break points on serve, Denis Shapovalov managed to win the opening set, 6-4.
Little slip there, but no problem for @denis_shapo though #wimbledon pic.twitter.com/9WOpT9NqcM
— Tennis GIFs
(@tennis_gifs) July 2, 2021
While Shapovalov’s forehand winners worked for him, Murray’s win percentage on first serve was below par. Despite making a swift comeback to wake up the crowd, the Brit couldn’t handle the all-round brilliance of Denis Shapovalov.
Murray looked down and out in the next two sets and lost the match eventually
The same trend continued in the second set as well. The two-time Wimbledon Champion lost his first two service games as he looked down and out, unable to handle the pace from his opponent.
Despite multiple cheers from a partisan crowd, Andy Murray couldn’t do much as Shapovalov became too good for him to tackle. The Brit’s first serve win percentage still remained low(47%) as he lost the second set, 2-6.
After the end of second set, there was brief break of ten minutes as the roof on center court was to be closed. With the roof closed, it was expected of Murray to make proper use of the indoor conditions.
However, the Canadian just continued with the flow and took his confidence to another level. In a way, he seemed to have preferred the indoor conditions better and rose to a quick 4-0 lead.
At this point of time, the crowd were cheering for every point Andy Murray won. Even though Shapovalov was just two games shy of victory, it could become really tight in the end for the youngster to close out the match.
Serving for the match at 5-2, Denis Shapovalov was single-minded and chose his shots perfectly to register a three-set winner against Andy Murray. The Brit’s valiant efforts in the previous two matches did have an effect in the third-round match up against the Canadian.
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