Murray through after tough five-set test

Andy Murray played his ’get out of jail free’ card at the US Open last night after fighting back from two sets to love down to defeat Robin Haase and reach the third round.

In a topsy-turvy clash, the world number four struggled for two sets, recovered to totally dominate the match and then survived the most dramatic of endings to triumph 6-7 (5-7) 2-6 6-2 6-0 6-4 against the big-hitting Dutchman.

Murray put his early troubles down to poor movement and was left feeling a very relieved man as he contemplated a third-round clash with Spanish 25th seed Feliciano Lopez.

The Scot said: “I was moving really badly the first couple of sets. That meant I was making a lot of mistakes I don’t normally make. My legs were not getting me round the court like they normally do and I was out of position for a lot of balls.

“Once I really just forced myself to get to as many balls as possible, kind of hustled a few points and got the break in the third set, I started playing better. That’s really a big part of my game, so I think it was down to that.

“It was an unbelievable ending to the match. I’m just glad I’m in the next round and get a chance to improve and play better and give myself a chance.”

After retrieving an early break, Murray should have won the first-set tie-break but he blew a 4-1 lead, and in the second set he was totally outplayed, winning only one point on his second serve.

It was a desperate situation but he secured the crucial break at 1-1 in the third set and then embarked on a run of 13 games in a row to take him to 4-0 up in the decider.

That appeared to be that but Haase got on the board with a service hold and, when Murray unexpectedly dropped his serve, suddenly the Dutchman had a way back in.

He broke again to make it 4-4 and, had he made it five games in a row, he may well have won, but he could not do it and that left Murray serving for the match.

Still there was drama aplenty, the fourth seed recovering from 0-30 to match point thanks to a net cord but missing two chances to close it out while Haase blew a break point before the fourth seed finally clinched victory.

While his fans may have been fearing the worst, Murray, who qualified for the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals in London with his victory, insisted: “That’s when I felt my calmest, in the fifth set.

“Even when he started coming back, I wasn’t panicking, I wasn’t getting frustrated. I just stayed focused and managed to turn it around.

“It’s just one of those matches where anything could have happened at the end. I just stayed a little bit tougher than him and got the win.”

It was the sixth time in his career Murray has come back from two sets down, and he added: “It does help to know physically you can get through the match. That’s really the main thing. You always feel like you can turn the match round in terms of the tennis.”

Haase, ranked at a career high of 41st, revealed he has been struggling for a while with a back problem that causes pain in his right leg, and it flared up again overnight.

He said: “I woke up at 2am and I couldn’t sleep for two hours, I was just walking down the corridor in the hotel because I was in so much pain.”

The Dutchman, who took a medical time-out at the start of the fourth set and continued to receive treatment at changes of ends, had no complaints with the result.

Haase said: “At 4-0 of course I was just hoping to get one or two more games but then at 4-2, 4-3, I actually felt like, ’OK, now he can have a struggle game maybe’.

“In that last game I think he was kind of lucky. But in the end I think he was the one who deserved it more because he was the fitter player then.”

Evaluating Murray’s game, Haase, who had won their only previous meeting in Rotterdam in 2008, said: “He’s number four in the world, and he’s not number four because he has the best serve in the world, the best forehand in the world or the best backhand.

“It’s because he’s an unbelievable tennis player, he plays, I would say, like a chess player. He plays the game really smart.”