After earning his first win of the season at the Qatar Open in Doha, Andy Murray suffered a dramatic three- hour plus loss in round two – his fifth of the current season.
The 36-year-old Briton, a former world No.1, battled for three-hours and 23-minutes only to fall 7-6(6) 6-7(3) 7-6(4) to the 18-year-old Czech, Jakub Mensik, world ranked 116.
Murray, who turns 37 in May, came back from 5-2 down in the final set to force a deciding tiebreak where he not surprisingly perhaps, ran out of steam.
Murray had hoped his fortunes had turned after defeating Alexandre Muller of France in the opening round but that is not proving to be the case.
Mensik was able to stick with him with his powerful hitting from the back of the court and his positive and strong serving which had Murray pinned down during what eventually turned out to be the longest match in the tournament’s history.
However, he did make an impression on that serve in the decider when he recovered from 2-5 down, breaking the youngster twice as he was serving for the match to level at 5-5 and force a final tie-break decider where he eventually capitulated.
“I’m just speechless right now, I don’t know what to say,” Mensik said following his win.
“It was a tough match, [Murray] is a great player and I watched him on the TV winning Wimbledon twice, it is unbelievable at his age he can still compete with the best players of the world.”
The Czech, who reached his first tour-level quarter-final, will play the top seed, Andrey Rublev in the last eight, following the Russian’s 57-minute,6-3 6-4 beating of the French veteran Richard Gasquet.
Another Frenchman, Gael Monfils, scrambled through a three-setter to reach the last eight, defeating China’s Zhichan Zhang 4-6 7-5 7-6(2) after two-hours and 23-minutes of entertaining play.
In the bottom half Aussie Alex Popyrin meets the fourth seeded Kazak, Alexander Bublic and Finland’s Emil Ruusuvuori takes on Russian Karen Khachanov, the second seed.
Jakub Mensik celebrates his victory
(Photo by Quality Sport Images/Getty Images)
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