- Scot beats fellow three-time major winner 7-6(3), 5-7, 7-5
- Cameron Norrie wins and will play Murray in second round
It has been five years since Stan Wawrinka and Andy Murray battled against each other in their fateful French Open semi-final in 2017, then two of the top three players in the world. They played for five bruising sets over four-and-a-half hours and although Wawrinka advanced, nobody really won. Murray left the match with serious hip injury, then two days later Wawrinka departed with a career-altering knee injury. After numerous surgeries and one metal hip, neither has fully recovered their levels.
On Monday afternoon, they began their 22nd meeting in far more understated circumstances, a first-round match in the secluded suburbs of Cincinnati. In the arduous, jittery match that followed, as both men battled their bodies as well as each other, Murray overcame a bout of cramping and a break in the third set as he drew upon his typical grit to emerge as the victor, 7-6(3), 5-7, 7-5.