Andy Murray won a decisive victory over compatriot Kyle Edmund on Wednesday at the Citi Open tournament, 7-6(4), 1-6, 6-4. And it’s about time!
It took the hard-fighting Scot Andy Murray two and a half hours to defeat his compatriot Kyle Edmund, but the former world No. 1 (but current No. 838!) got the morale boosting victory done.
The win is a nice revenge for the British player, who lost to Edmund at Eastbourne in June during what looked like a momentum-building effort to play Wimbledon. The loss at the time was especially demoralizing after he had won his first match of the year, over Stan Wawrinka, a former No. 3 and also three-time slam champ. After the disappointment, Murray decided not to play Wimbledon and rest up for the hard court season. In the meantime, he’s watched Edmund surpass him as the British No. 1 while Murray’s ranking has slipped to a shocking No. 838 due to lack of match play.
But Andy Murray swore that he was more confident coming into hard court season. He certainly looked it this time around, fighting for points against Edmund and pushing through the match for the win. He also talked to himself a lot and certainly looked agitated. But most importantly, he looked like he wanted to win. And the confidence boost from the important success should see him through the match against Marius Copil on Thursday.
Perhaps his comeback is for real this time. If so, it couldn’t be better timed, at the start of the hard court season leading up to the U.S. Open, a tournament he won in 2012.
“Now I have to get my body to play that way consistently and work on getting better with every match,” Murray said after the win.
“Much better in terms of the way I played,” Murray said. “Got a lot more points off my forehand. I was able to be more aggressive. I wanted to dictate more points and be inside the baseline, especially on the main points and particularly in the third set.
“I was less nervous. I increased my intensity at the end of the second set. I thought I did that well.”
The 32 year-old looked stiff walking between points and he’s still building up his strength at the tournament level, but Murray also seemed pumped, very animated, and like he was handling the pressure well.
“It will hopefully be good for me in the long run and we’ll try and keep it going this week,” Murray said afterwards.
With Novak Djokovic officially back, and Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal still sitting on top of the ATP leaderboard, it looks like the band is getting back together. Could it be that the Big Four are officially back on tour?