Murray wins physical battle against Berrettini in Miami

Andy Murray edged out Italian Matteo Berrettini 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 to move into the second round of the Miami Masters at the Hard Rock Stadium on Wednesday.

The win sees Murray level his head-to-head with the Italian to 3-3, keeping Berrettini winless in Miami from three main draw entries.

“It was obviously a great win for me,” said Murray after the match, who now has the opportunity to win back-to-back matches on the ATP Tour for the first time since September 2023. “Started off a little bit slow, but I thought I played pretty well from the start of the second set through to the end of the match.”

Murray holds up better in physical match

Despite being longer in the tooth than his opponent, it was Murray who held up best across the length of this two hour, 48 minute match.

The Scot started slower, giving away a break in the opening set to go down 6-4 in the first stanza.

However, an epic sixth game of the second set saw Murray come away with a break of his own. Shortly after, Berrettini keeled over while setting up for a first serve, staggering on court and completely losing his balance. The 27-year-old was taken to sit down and treated by medical staff, requiring the better part of five minutes before he was able to resume playing.

Following the incident, Berrettini looked unsteady on his feet and lacked footwork. This led the Italian to begin taking big cuts at the ball, with a plethora of both winners and unforced errors coming from his racquet. It wasn’t enough to win the set though, with Berrettini going down 6-3.

In the third, matters were decided early on. An epic 13-minute opening game that saw Murray forego a 0-40 lead eventually led to another break of Berrettini’s serve. While he played valiantly across the remainder of the match, one break was enough with Murray closing out the third set 6-4 to win and progress to the second round.

Murray, ranked No 62, will play No 29 seed Tomas Martin Etcheverry next.

Miami Masters 1000, other first-round results (Hard Rock Stadium, hard, USD 10.404.205, most recent results first):

• Dusan Lajovic vs. Gael Monfils
• Alexei Popyrin vs. Facundo Diaz Acosta
• Daniel Elahi Galan vs. Alexander Shevchenko
• Roman Safiullin vs. Diego Schwartzman
• Aleksandar Vukic vs. Roberto Carballes Baena
• Alexandre Muller vs. SoonWoo Kwon
• Emilio Nava vs. Roberto Bautista Agut
• Emil Ruusuvuori vs. Yannick Hanfmann
• Martin Landaluce vs. Jaume Munar
• Aleksandar Kovacevic vs. Fabian Marozsan
• Lorenzo Sonego vs. Daniel Evans
• Sebastian Ofner vs. Kei Nishikori
• Alejandro Tabilo vs. Brandon Nakashima
• Felix Auger-Aliassime vs. Adam Walton
• Daniel Altmaier vs. Harold Mayot
• Laslo Djere vs. Chak Lam Coleman Wong
• Alex Michelsen vs. Lukas Klein
• Marcos Giron vs. Dominik Koepfer
• Arthur Fils vs. Matteo Arnaldi
• Martin Damm vs. Zhizhen Zhang: wednesday
• Miomir Kecmanovic vs. Juncheng Shang: wednesday
• Thiago Seyboth Wild (Q) beat Nuno Borges: 6-4, 7-5
• Andrea Vavassori (Q) beat Pedro Cachin: 6-2, 6-2
• Marton Fucsovics beat Max Purcell: 6-2, 6-1
• Tomas Machac beat Darwin Blanch (WC): 6-4, 6-2
• Flavio Cobolli beat Yoshihito Nishioka (LL): 1-6, 6-1, 6-4
• Christopher O’Connell beat Vit Kopriva (Q): 6-2, 6-4
• Jack Draper beat Taro Daniel: 6-3, 6-2
• Denis Shapovalov beat Luciano Darderi: 6-3, 6-7 (3), 6-4
• Botic van de Zandschulp beat Rinky Hijikata: 7-5, 7-6 (3)
• Luca Van Assche beat Pavel Kotov: 6-3, 7-5