Andy Murray beats Dominic Thiem to prolong his adventure on clay

For a considerable amount of time over the past few months, Andy Murray did not even intend to step foot on a clay court this year. His primary goal was to maintain his body for the grass‑court season to come and the gruelling nature of clay‑court tennis could jeopardise that.

In the end, though, Murray just could not stay away. After attaining a surprise wildcard into the Madrid Open, on Monday he played a solid, composed match to reach the second round with a 6-3, 6-4 win against Dominic Thiem. Murray will next face either Denis Shapovalov, the 14th seed, or Ugo Humbert.

“I played well,” Murray told Amazon Prime. “I thought Dominic was playing well at times but he’s obviously just started playing again as well so making a few more mistakes than usual. But I was happy with the way I played and I moved particularly well; that’s something I’ve been working on a lot the last four weeks and it changes the way I play the game.” The last time Murray and Thiem met each other on clay, almost exactly five years ago in 2017, Murray was the world No 1 and Thiem was on the cusp of establishing himself as arguably the second‑best clay-court player in the world for a short period.

While Murray is ranked 78th and is years into his return from hip surgery, at No 91 Thiem is trying to recover from the nadir of his career. His struggles even pre‑dated his injury, with motivation issues following his maiden grand slam title victory at the 2020 US Open.

As he searched for new motivation, Thiem badly injured his right wrist during a match last June and his comeback attempts have been beset by countless setbacks. In his rush to return swiftly, he reinjured his wrist and was forced to wear a new cast. Illness, a right‑knuckle injury and then