Wimbledon 2022: Impressive Isner closes on all-time aces record with first victory over Murray

Andy Murray, twice a champion at Wimbledon, a former No1, and winner of Olympic gold on the All England Club’s Centre Court, had never, in 13 previous visits to his home Major lost before the third round.

Way back in his first appearance as a teenager, in 2005, he was even within touching distance of the fourth round after taking a two sets to love lead over No19 David Nalbandian. Murray did not fall short of the quarters for 10 straight years, from 2008 to 2017, and with his opening-round win at the start of this week, he took his tally of match-wins here to 60.

It has been a glittering Wimbledon career by any measure, and that despite numerous enforced absences following serious injury: wrist surgery in 2007; back surgery in 2013; hip surgery in 2018 and 2019.

And he had high hopes of a deeper run this year after working his way from a ranking of 134 at the start of the year to a current 52. He reached the final of both Sydney and, during the grass swing, Stuttgart, and was confident that he had recovered from an abdominal pull in that recent final.

But his ranking was not high enough yet to earn a seeding in the Wimbledon draw, and while he—and indeed all the 17 Britons in the singles draws—avoided seeds in the first round, he was not so lucky in the second.

There he faced an old adversary, one now aged 37 to Murray’s 35, in John Isner. The tall American with one of the most feared serves in tennis had 16 career titles, one of them at Masters level, and had four times won on the grass of Newport. He also reached the semis at Wimbledon in 2018.

In his first match here this year, Isner served 54 aces, taking his career-tally to 13,688, second only to Ivo Karlovic. Just 41 more, and Isner would take the record, and very nearly did so during his ninth match against Murray.

In the event, Isner notched up 36 more: Had Murray taken the match to a fifth set, that would have been enough, but so well was the veteran American playing across the board that Murray simply could not work enough opportunities to break him. Isner saved the only two break points faced, and conceded one tie-break set to the Briton in a fever-pitch atmosphere played long into Wednesday evening.

But it was not just Isner’s serving that undid Murray: the American won 12 serve-and-volley plays, and 43 points at the net, in a clinic of fast grass-court play. And his mental resilience in the face of deafening support on every point for Murray was impressive. If he has played a higher-quality match in his long career, it is hard to recall, and it earned a great reception from even this partisan crowd.

The respect was mutual:

“I am most definitely not a better tennis player than Andy Murray, I might have just been a little better than him today.

“It was an incredible honour to play him on this court in front of this crowd. At the age I’m at now, I need to relish these moments. This was one of the biggest wins of my career. To play as well as I did against one of our greatest players ever was a huge accomplishment for me. He’s a massive inspiration to each one of us in the locker room and we are so lucky to still have him around.”

He afterwards added:

“That was an amazing moment for me out there at 37. I think that’s, to my knowledge, only the third match I played on Centre Court, one of which was at the Olympics in 2012… It’s a huge, incredible honour for me to play against him on that court.”

Isner goes on to play a man 16 years his junior, and already ranked 10 places higher, Jannik Sinner. Their only previous main-tour match, in Cincinnati last year, lasted more than two and a half hours and three sets, with a win for Isner—who hit 12 aces. That record will be falling very soon, whether the big man wins or loses.

But what of Murray, whose shortest run at Wimbledon ended in four sets after almost three and a half hours, 6-4, 7-6(4), 6-7(3), 6-4?

He was asked how he felt this year compared with his battling run to the third round last summer—which was his first return to Wimbledon since 2017 following his major hip surgery.

“Last year was difficult for different reasons. I was really looking forward to playing at Wimbledon, but at the same time I didn’t feel like my game was in a position to do well. Physically I was not in a good place coming into the tournament last year. I was really frustrated and questioning whether all of the work that I was doing was worth it because my body was still not in a position to feel I could be competitive against the best players.

“Whereas this year my game was certainly in a better place. Physically I felt good, barring the 10 days post-Stuttgart, which was frustrating. I could have had a good run here. One of the reasons why improving your ranking and trying to get seeded is important, is to avoid playing top players and dangerous guys like that early in tournaments.

“Yeah, it’s one of those matches that, had I got through, who knows what would have happened.”

Yet there is no sign that the disappointment of this set-back will deter Murray from keeping up his fight to get back to a higher level.

“I mean, it depends on how I am physically… But it’s extremely difficult with the problems I’ve had with my body in the last few years to make long-term predictions about how I’m going to be even in a few weeks’ time, never mind in a year’s time.

“If physically I’m in a good place, I will continue to play but it’s not easy to keep my body in optimal condition to compete at the highest level.

“I really want to try and improve my ranking to a level where I’m getting seeded in slams. That was a goal of mine post Miami… I want to try and put [myself in that] position hopefully come the US Open, [or] if not the US Open, then going into the Australian Open, where I’m seeded again. That means obviously I’ll need to be out there competing and winning matches… If you’re playing against top guys right at the beginning of the event, obviously makes it a little bit more challenging.”

Six seeds have failed to make the third round in the top half of the draw headed by No1 seed Novak Djokovic.

· Tim van Rijthoven continued his grass winning ways by beating No15 Reilly Opelka

· No3 seed and runner-up at Roland Garros, Casper Ruud, lost to Ugo Humbert

· No31 seed Sebastian Baez lost to David Goffin

· No16 seed Pablo Carreno Busta and No18 seed Grigor Dimitrov had to retire injured

· No7 seed lost his opener to Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, who subsequently lost on in five sets via a penalty point on match point to Jiri Vesely