Andy Murray has played many better matches in the Australian Open than his second-round win over Vincent Millot, but has never had a better finish.
Scotland’s world number four was taken by surprise when French qualifier Millot suddenly began to play well above his ranking of 267, smashing winners from all sides as he raced into a 5-1 lead in the third set.
Millot had a set point but Murray saved it and from then on won every single point – a run of 23 in succession – to triumph 6-2, 6-2, 7-5.
Murray said: “It was 6-5 when I went to serve for it and someone shouted out ‘You won 19 in a row’. I would say that’s probably the most I’d won in my career by far.
“It’s very difficult to do. I don’t really know how I did it. But I didn’t realise until I went to serve for the match. It was a good way to finish.
“He was obviously almost going for broke on a lot of shots. He was hitting the ball so early, and flat and low. It was very humid today, so the ball really wasn’t flying much. He came up with some great shots in the third set. Then when he didn’t get his set point – I played a good point on his set point – I guess it’s normal he got a little bit nervous, which helped. He started missing a few balls and I adjusted my tactics a little bit.”
The importance of the winning streak to Murray is that it enabled him to complete the match in straight sets and get off the court.
Even though he knew he had won 19 points in a row going into the final game, he said: “I just wanted to win the game. It was obviously fairly late. The way that set had gone, I just wanted to try to get through that game. I didn’t really care about winning 23 points in a row. I wanted to win the match. I’m glad I finished it there, because they were very, very hard conditions. Even in the evening it was so humid. After they closed the roof they obviously had the rain and the thunderstorms.
“It changed the way the court and the balls played a lot. It was heavier. I hit a lot of balls in the net today. It slowed everything down a bit. I just was glad to get off.”
It was a strange match that took a long time to catch fire.
Although the extreme heat that had caused the roof on Rod Laver Arena to be shut during the afternoon had subsided, it was still warm and very humid.
Next up for Murray is a familiar foe, 26th seed Feliciano Lopez, who defeated German Michael Berrer in straight sets to reach the third round.
Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer matched each other stroke for stroke on their way to the third round. They found themselves playing at exactly the same time, under the roofs on Rod Laver and Hisense Arena.
After starting their matches together, they also finished them within a couple of minutes of each other, both securing straight-sets wins.
Top seed Nadal faced the lowest-ranked player in the draw, 17-year-old Thanasi Kokkinakis, the world number 570.
The Australian gave a good account of himself but found Nadal too tough, the Spaniard winning 6-2, 6-4, 6-2. Federer raced through the first two sets against Slovenian Blaz Kavcic but was given a tougher test in the third before winning 6-2, 6-1, 7-6 (7-4).