Second seed Andy Murray continued his US Open preparation with a hard-fought 4-6 6-2 6-1 victory over Max Purcell at ATP Newport.
The Brit, who won his maiden Grand Slam singles title at Flushing Meadows back in 2012, fell to a set down to Purcell but showed all his battling qualities once again to come through by only losing three games thereafter.
Purcell, who won the Wimbledon men’s doubles title alongside Matthew Ebden last week, did not look remotely fatigued as he gave the 35-year-old a big scare in taking the opening set.
For Murray, it was a relief to come through the last-16 encounter as he continues to ramp up ahead of the final Grand Slam of the year in New York.
“He has a very different game style to a lot of the players on Tour nowadays,” Murray said in his post-match interview.
“He was using a lot of slice off of both sides, which is very rare. It took some time to get used to that way of playing.
“Then once I started to find my rhythm a little bit in the middle of the second set, I was able to dictate points and push him around the court a little bit more, whereas in the first set I certainly wasn’t doing that.”
Murray, who was playing at the event for the first time since 2006, was referring to the sliced groundstrokes employed by Purcell with unusual regularity.
After coming through the match in two hours and 23-minutes, it was a relieved Murray that defeated the Australian on the grass court at Newport.
Murray will next take on the mercurial Alexander Bublik of Kazakhstan in the third round. The third seed defeated Jack Sock 6-3 3-6 6-2 on Wednesday.
