Tomas Machac’s first-round clash against Andy Murray is one of the most-anticipated matches of The Championships. The encounter has plenty to live up to after their match-of-the-year candidate from the Miami third round in March.
The pair battled for a gruelling three hours and 28 minutes, making the occasion the third-longest best-of-three Miami men’s singles match on record. It was not just a long clash, but a dramatic one.
After rallying from 2-5 down in the final set, Murray rolled his ankle and was in agony. He returned to the court and managed to lead in the tie-break before losing despite suffering a full rupture of his ATFL and a near full thickness rupture of his CFL. Machac said it was “for sure the toughest match of my career”.
Now they will meet again on one of the biggest stages of the sport: Centre Court at SW19.
“It’s a first round at a Grand Slam. But it's a special kind of occasion that we will play on Centre Court with the local guy maybe at the end of the career, playing good tennis,” Machac told ATPTour.com. “So this occasion is something special, I would say. But normally it's a first round for me. It's different, but I'm thinking like it's a normal match on the big stage.”
As Machac said, the winner will only advance to the second round, not lift the trophy. But the eyes of a nation will be glued to every shot. Murray has made clear this will be his final appearance at The Championships and he just underwent surgery for a back cyst after the cinch Championships.
Machac will hope to take what he learned from their marathon encounter in Miami and apply it to the Wimbledon grass.
“It took quite a lot of time there. I was shaking because it was something incredible for me,” Machac said. “But after that, I was feeling much better on the court and everything was going welI. I remember that moment and it helps me lots to think about it.”
The Czech was shaking not just because Murray was across the net, but because there were big stakes. It was an opportunity to reach the fourth round at an ATP Masters 1000 event for the first time. He defeated Murray and then Matteo Arnaldi to make the quarter-finals.
One year ago, Machac needed to battle through qualifying to reach the Wimbledon main draw. He was No. 108 in the PIF ATP Rankings at the time and faced Cameron Norrie on No. 1 Court. He fell to the home favourite.
“I think last year, I was a little bit nervous from the beginning of the match,” Machac said. “When you are standing on this kind of stage against the local guy, it's not easy from the beginning for you that you need to handle this situation. But I think I'm ready for that this year.”
Now the Czech is World No. 39 and a month ago he reached a career-high World No. 33.
“It's much better. It's much better for me, especially when I played against Sinner in the quarter-finals of a 1000 [in Miami],” Machac said. “It's much better [now] that I have [played] these kind of matches. It helps.
“[I am] more experienced, of course. Then I think my game improved a lot. I'm trying to play with the best parts of my game, I don't need to change something. I'm resisting to the [top players] quite good. So it helped me to improve in every way.”
Machac earned the biggest win of his career in Geneva, where he stunned Novak Djokovic in the semi-finals.
“Of course, with Novak, it sticks out, of course. These kind of matches, if you win it's something that you will keep in your head for a long time, and it's helped you to become better,” Machac said. “The match point I was hoping that he will miss actually. I was on the return against him, so I was just waiting for his mistake to finish the game actually.
“[I was thinking] like, ‘Wow, I did it. I beat the best one’. And after that, I was trying to be as quick as possible at the net to show him the respect that I will not lay down or something and he will wait in the net. So I was trying to show him the respect that I was happy to share the court with him and enjoy the game against him.”
All the experience has prepared Machac to meet the moment on Centre Court against Murray. All eyes will be on the Scot, but Machac will be ready to put up a fight.
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