Andy Murray fought back to avoid an embarrassing defeat to world No.179 Tallon Griekspoor in Great Britain’s opening match at the Davis Cup finals.
Leon Smith’s team had dropped lines from Frozen into their pre-tournament press conference before facing the Netherlands.
But the joke threatened to be on the double Olympic champion as Griekspoor, who grew up idolising the Olympic champion, smashed down 11 aces on his way to winning the first set tiebreak.
And Andy Murray, who looked sluggish and lacking in match sharpness, had to come back from a break down in the third set to claim the third-set tiebreak to win 6-7 6-4 7-6 in a real nailbiter. The Scot even trailed 1-4 in the decisive tiebreak.
The Dutchman, 23, has only ever won two ATP Tour level matches, has never been ranked higher than world No.161 and has never played in a Grand Slam main draw or won a Davis
Murray had not played since winning the ATP title in Antwerp last month and admitted he put on 10 pounds during 12 days off. And on Wednesday the three-time Grand Slam champion cast doubt on whether he was fit enough to five singles matches in five consecutive days but he decided to play against the weakest team in the group.
He looked sluggish and short of match practice against a player who played the match of his life and smashed down 24 aces.
The Dutchman, 23, has only ever won two ATP Tour level matches, has never been ranked higher than world No.161 and has never played in a Grand Slam main draw or won a Davis Cup match.
He lost to Liam Broady in the second round of Wimbledon qualifying in the summer but Griekspoor rose to the occasion in the altitude of Madrid against Britain’s best ever player.
The tight first set saw no breaks of serve. In the tiebreak, Griekspoor saved a Murray set point and hit before taking his second with a forehand winner down the line. He hit 11 aces. 19 winners and had a 71% first serve percentage.
Normal service seemed to have been resumed when the Scot broke in the first game of the second set and took his first set point when the Dutchman hit a backhand into the net.
But the world No.179 would not go away as he broke to lead 3-1 in the decider with another forehand winner. World No.126 Murray broke back to 4-4 and took the match to a second tiebreak.
He was 4-1 down but won a crucial point at 4-3 after his incredible defence retrieved a Griekspoor smash before forcing the error and he took his first match point when the Dutchman hit a backhand into the net.
Murray said: “I’m obviously relieved just now. I don’t think I deserved to win that match. I fought extremely hard but he dictated a lot of the points.
“I thought he served amazing. I wasn’t able to find a way to dictate the points. I just fought hard and scrambled at 4-1 down in the tie-break. It was enough to go my way.
“We knew he had been a bit injured. He hurt his ankle four weeks ago. We had sort of prepared to play against the number two. An hour before the match it changed. I didn’t know an awful lot about his game.
“In these circumstances he is going for it and putting me on the backfoot. It’s difficult when guys are playing like that.”
Asked about the atmosphere on Court 3, Murray said: “The atmosphere was brilliant. That was the one concern I had about this event on neutral ground. It was great.
“There were lots of Dutch fans, it was packed and a really good atmosphere throughout. It was fantastic. You want to see that in every match.”
