Match report: Murray roars back from the brink

FOR nearly fours they battled, with the pendulum swinging first one way and then the other. The fourth-round contest between Richard Gasquet and Andy Murray had been forecast as too close to call, and any match which goes to five sets can hardly be called one-sided.

But the first two and a bit sets were certainly steeply in Gasquet's favour, before Murray, the British No 1, brought off the most remarkable comeback of his career to win 5-7, 3-6, 7-6 (7-3), 6-2, 6-4 and set up a last-eight meeting with Rafael Nadal, the No 2 seed.

For the first seven games there was almost nothing to choose between the two, with both players holding serve and Gasquet leading 4-3 .

But in the eighth game, Murray faced the first break points of the match. He saved both, but the pressure was growing.

He withstood it when serving to stay in the set at 5-4 behind, but did not fare so well a second time after Gasquet had easily gone 6-5 up. Already in trouble at 15-30, the British No 1 served a double fault to give his rival two set points. He saved them, both, and then another two, but on the fifth set point he put a return out, and Gasquet was a set up.

The No 8 seed wasted no time in pressing home his advantage in the second set, and raced into a 3-0 lead before Murray could regroup his thoughts. The Scot at least held his serve at the second time of asking to close to 3-1, and then in the next game there came a glimmer of a chance when he held his first break point of the match.

That came an hour and a quarter into the contest, but after waiting so long for the chance, Murray was unable to do anything with it. Gasquet took the point and the next two to snuff out the danger and go 4-1 up.

After that, the rest of the set verged on the straightforward for the Frenchman. A game apiece took the score to 5-2, and Gasquet was unconcerned as Murray took his next service game to love. Serving for a two-set lead, Gasquet began poorly by going 0-30 down, but then recovered to win the game on the fourth set point.

Two contrasting facts – Gasquet's ability to keep up an extremely high standard of play and Murray's underperforming serve – explained why the former player was two sets to the good. Murray stabilised the situation to an extent, saving a break point in the opening game then trading games all the way to 4-4. Then came what looked like being the end: another break of the Murray serve, expertly set up by Gasquet on game point.

But suddenly, with Gasquet serving for the match, Murray managed to do what he had been unable to for the previous two hours and 15 minutes – break his opponent. Then he held his own serve to go 6-5 up, albeit only on the eighth game point.

After being in control for so long, Gasquet was facing the prospect of a very different kind of match if he lost the third set. With the clock ticking round past eight, there was the growing prospect that the light would not last long enough for the match to be completed – and with it the possibility that neither player would be playing at quite the same level when play resumed the following day.

Nerves were showing in his play for almost the first time, but in the end Gasquet made it 6-6 to take the set to the tiebreak. Murray took control of that, however, by going 4-0 up. He was pinned back to 4-3, then held two serves. Gasquet was now staring three set points in the face, and although he came close to saving the first, an inspired shot by Murray from well beyond the tramlines gave the Scot the game 7-3 and the set 7-6.

The momentum had now swung away from Gasquet, and the demoralising effect on him of losing that third set was soon evident in the fourth when he was broken in the third game. Murray's serve was much improved by this time, and was running at 69 per cent for the set. Gasquet, conversely, was rattled, and he was easily broken again for 5-2 before the Briton easily wrapped up the set 6-2 to make it two sets apiece.

That fourth set had taken only 25 minutes, which enhanced the possibility of deciding the outcome without the need for an overnight break. After more than three hours on court, though, Gasquet needed a bathroom break before the fifth set got under way around 8.45pm – the time when on more overcast evenings the last few games of the day are being eked out.

Into the fifth set, Gasquet opened, and saved four break points. The fifth, however, was taken by Murray – who thus went ahead for the first time in the match after a mere three-and-a-quarter hours. Gasquet went 2-0 down then complained to the umpire about the light, but did not receive a sympathetic hearing either then or five minutes later, after he had closed to 2-1, when the match referee Andrew Jarrett was called on to court.

Murray maintained his service-break advantage to go 4-2 up, and had two break points for 5-2 only to see Gasquet save both then take the game with an ace. The Scot held his own serve comfortably, though, to go 5-3 up.

The No 8 seed saved one match point in that ninth game, then took it to close to 4-5 down. Murray then served for the match, and a place in that quarter-final against Nadal. It was his last chance to stop the contest going to a second day. He took it ruthlessly, ending the contest at 9.29pm with, ironically, a winning service.

Shot of shots the turning point as Scot wins over Centre Court

ALAN PATTULLO

WARNED for use of a swear word while on the way to a defeat in three swift sets. That was the ignominious way Andy Murray had threatened to end his third Wimbledon campaign. With the kind of whimper his new Border terrier puppy might produce when ordered out into the night.

But rather than going gently into the Wimbledon dusk, Murray staged one of the finest comebacks seen in recent years on Centre Court. The urge to compare Murray with Tim Henman is constant, but this had nothing to do with his invariably heroic losses. This was a victory. Feel the noise.

The extent of Murray's recovery should not completely obscure just how devastating was the decline suffered by his opponent. The contest reached pantomime-proportions at times, with Gasquet double-faulting and Murray, too, making elementary errors at the net. Fatigue and lack of light surely played their parts in an absorbing, compelling spectacle.

Both gave so much to the drama, and Gasquet, for so long the villain, deserved his applause at the end. To his credit, he acknowledged the reaction of the fans.

That we arrived at the point we did, where Murray had somehow qualified for his first grand slam quarter-final, was insane. By the end, though, his French opponent had been flayed. Murray had single handedly – or make it double-handedly – saved his skin.

The foothold for this comeback had been established with a shot of shots to win the third set tie-break, completed from a position that was somewhere among those fans being sent ever giddier by what was unfolding.

The Scot had levered his own way out of trouble amid growing disinterest from the spectators, many of whom had begun to entertain themselves with Mexican Waves. Unusually, those Australians present formed a bond with the British competitor, succeeding in whipping-up those around them. Murray responded. Time and time again he gestured to these groups, whose yellow wigs – even for someone with a two-set deficit to turn around – were easy to spot.

The code-violation for swearing hinted at the frustration felt by Murray. He was simply being beaten by a player who, for two whole sets, had performed so much better. Gasquet was revealing himself to be something more than a wimpish Frenchman with a history of drawing back from the challenge.

Apparently Gasquet was even afraid of his own fans, who, he said, put unbearable pressure on him.

But then that shot, after which the Scot hardly put a foot wrong. Gasquet visibly wilted. The crowd responded to Murray's clenched fists, and the promptings of those redoubtable Australians.

"Finish him off now Andy" came the cry. He did. He did. Can Scotland boast a more titanic sporting performance in recent times? It's difficult to think of one that can compare, particularly amid the gasps and the cheers of a Centre Court which can now be considered officially won over.