Andy Murray wins first match in nine months as men’s tennis returns
- Murray wins his first match in nine months as he resumes his climb back from two hip operations came at the first ATP tournament for anyone in five months
Andy Murray wore a coronavirus-conscious mask on his way to the unusual, no-spectators setting and avoided handshakes when he left. In between, the three-time grand slam champion offered his usual mix of hustling and muttering.
“Physically, I thought I did pretty well,” said Murray, who won Wimbledon twice and the US Open in 2012. “I moved maybe better than what I expected to.”
The men’s tennis tour had been suspended since March because of the pandemic; the resumption came at a hard-court event moved from its home in Ohio to the site of the US Open, which begins August 31.
Murray moved into a second-round test against number five seed Alexander Zverev. Other men advancing Saturday included two-time grand slam runner-up Kevin Anderson, Canadians Milos Raonic, Felix Auger-Aliassime and Denis Shapovalov, and Americans Taylor Fritz and Reilly Opelka.
“To have no sound during the whole match, it was really odd,” said No 15 seed Auger-Aliassime, the first winner of an ATP match since March, 6-4, 6-1 against Nikoloz Basilashvili. “Obviously, we’re used to it in practice, but now it’s an important match, it’s a Masters 1000, and to have nobody, to have no crowd, it feels weird.”