MIAMI -- Andy Murray's first win on the ATP Tour was over Santiago Ventura, who did not play nearly as adventurous a game as his name may suggest when he bowed to Murray in the first round at Queens Club in 2005, 6-1, 6-2.
Murray had just turned 18 at the time. Generally, things get easier the more often you do them, and the older you get. Not in tennis. Thus, Murray found himself hard-pressed here at the Miami Open on Tuesday to write his landmark 500th match victory in the books. He finally got it done, overcoming some stiff resistance from raw-boned, hard-serving No. 15 seed Kevin Anderson, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3.
Top-ranked Novak Djokovic provided an even more vivid proof of this cruel logic. He was nearly eliminated in his own fourth-round struggle with unseeded Alexandr Dolgopolov. Djokovic busted up a racket in the first set and found himself down a break on three different occasions in a ragged match that he finally won, 6-7 (3), 7-5, 6-0. Djokovic was aided considerably by Dolgopolov's hamstring injury in the final set in which the Ukrainian lost 24 of 27 points.
The difficulty Murray and Djokovic, two stalwarts of the Big Four, experienced is emblematic of the way this tournament has been going. This Miami Open has become a struggle to survive. Nobody is safe (well, almost nobody -- there's still Serena Williams). It's the final event of the early hard-court segment for both the ATP and WTA, and the players, who have put in a significant amount of court time, find their games fraying around the edges. So are their emotions. And nobody has put in more high-stress court time this year than Djokovic.
This was one of those days when a guy like Djokovic isn't proud of his serve, his backhand or his smash. He's proud of his willingness to grit his teeth and do whatever it takes to win on a day when the temptation to just let it all go and move on is strong. As he said after he won:
"I fought my way through. I was frustrated. I was losing my composure in the first set, because I didn't feel good. ... I got tight, and then I was just kind of hanging in there, fighting a different battle inside of myself, I would say. That was the biggest battle that I fought today."
Djokovic won that battle because he's proved that he's the most focused, patient, determined player out there. He's bushed. He's already bagged a Grand Slam event this year, and barely a week ago, he won the first of these back-to-back Masters 1000 events in Indian Wells. He's fried, but he keeps finding a way, a reason to continue.
"It's just that I played a lot of matches," said Djokovic, looking deceptively fresh and animated barely an hour after his brush with tennis mortality. "It's taking a little bit of a toll mentally on me. I mean, I don't feel that I'm very fresh on the court, even though I'm trying."
That Roger Federer never showed up and Rafael Nadal was knocked out of this event early hardly matters. Motivation-wise, that could go either way. It could take the edge off -- or bring out the opportunist that lives in every champion.
"Of course they are my biggest rivals," Djokovic said of Federer and Nadal. "When they are not around a tournament seems a little bit different. There is no question about it. But from my perspective, it's just important to do my job, to do what I need to do."
Djokovic gets a well-earned day off Wednesday, as does Murray. But the reality is that Djokovic probably will have to lift his game substantially if he wants to get by his quarterfinal opponent, No. 6 seed David Ferrer. Murray meets the explosive Austrian 21-year-old, unseeded Dominic Thiem.
Murray's win over Anderson could hardly be characterized as a clinical triumph, but then what Murray match does? Anderson broke the cardinal rule all big servers live by when he failed to take care of his serve, allowing Murray a break in the very first game of the first set. But as the set went on, Anderson nibbled away at the edges of Murray's service games.
"The end of the first set was tough," Murray admitted. "He was starting to get more chances on my service games."
Anderson's persistence paid off with a break of Murray's first service game of the second set. You'd think both of these guys would learn, but Anderson coughed up the first game of the final set. Although Murray handed back the advantage, he broke Anderson again for 3-1 and ran out the match.
Thus Murray joined eight other active players (and 46 in the Open era) with 500 wins or more.
"Obviously, there has not been loads of players that have done it," Murray said after the match. "And it's nice for me that it happened [in Miami]. It's fitting just because I have spent so much time training here and working to get better and to improve. I hope I've still got a lot more wins in me. To get to 500 is good. It's not an easy thing to do at my age."
In the big picture, 46 may seem like a large number of players. But the most impressive associated detail is that Murray is the second-youngest player on that list.
The youngest? Why it's Djokovic, of course, who was born just seven days after Murray, but who already has 125 more wins than his Scottish friend.
Better keep those kicks laced up, Andy.
