Andrea Vavaossri of Italy registered the biggest win of his career by stunning Andy Murray of Great Britain 6-2 7-6 in the first round of the Madrid Open on Thursday. It was the first ever win in a Masters 1000 tournaments for the Italian, ranked 164th in the world, as he left the two-time champion surprised.
Meanwhile, it was yet another disappointment for the 35-year-old Brit, who is definitely in the twilight of his career.
How Andrea Vavassori beat Andy Murray in Madrid
Andrea Vavassori dominated with his big serve in the first set:
Vavassori used his height (1.93 meters) to hit his first serve really well. Murray struggled to deal with the Italian’s first delivery and the latter had won 21 out of 23 points on his first serve at one stage.
To make matters worse for him, Murray served really poorly in the first set and was broken twice to hand the Italian an early advantage.
Murray bounced back well, but hit a few poor volleys:
Vavassori once again broke Murray in the second set to race to a 4-2 lead, but then the Brit staged a brief comeback by serving with a lot of firepower. He also directed a lot of traffic towards Vavassori’s backhand, which often proved to be the latter’s weakness.
Vavassori responded with backhand slices, but that allowed Murray to gain an upper hand in a lot of rallies. The Brit broke back and the second set went into a tie-break.
Vavassori started going around his backhand more often in the tie-break and hit a few stunning inside-in and inside-out forehand from seemingly awkward positions. He led 6-3, but Murray then managed to save three match points to level the score.
However, the Brit made a few glaring mistakes by hitting a few volleys into the net to hand the Italian a victory. Vavassori hit 14 winners off his forehand alone in the match, as Murray committed 23 unforced errors in it.
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