As Thanasi Kokkinakis stepped up to the baseline with a two-set lead to serve out one of the best performances of his life, he would have been confident against most other players in the world. But almost nobody battles like Andy Murray when in trouble. He furiously scours for solutions, he fights with whatever he has and he has so often found a way through.
From the brink of defeat, Murray somehow pulled off one of the greatest feats of his exceptional career, recovering from a two-set deficit against Kokkinakis in his second consecutive five-set match – with a metal hip. This time he triumphed 4-6, 6-7 (4), 7-6 (5), 6-3, 7-5 in a five-hour, 45-minute epic that lasted until 4.05am.
