Andy Murray Yells “Shut Up” at Fabio Fognini in Drama-Filled Match

The 10th seed Fabio Fognini rallies past the former world No.1 Andy Murray in a drama-filled match to defeat him 7-6, 2-6, 7-6 in 3 hours and 11 minutes in a hard-fought match in the second round of the Shanghai Rolex Masters 2019 on Tuesday.

Set one

Fabio Fognini troubled Andy Murray from his opening service game as he earned a breakpoint but couldn’t make the most out of it. However, in his second service game, Fognini gained two break points before breaking the Briton to get a lead of 2-1 in the first set.

The Italian couldn’t keep the lead for a long time as he was broken back in the next game after he hit a double fault to gift Andy Murray two breakpoints. Andy Murray, who has held 80 percent of service games after breaking serve in 2019, held a comfortable serve game to get a lead of  3-2.

The 32-year-old stepped up in the next game and broke Fognini for the second time in the match but the Scott squandered his lead as Fabio Fognini was back on serve with a rebreak in the next game.

The 32-year-old Italian had the chance to serve for the set when he earned two break points on Murray’s serve at 5-5 but the latter held his serve. The match was forced to go through the tiebreaker as the two were tied up at 6-6 after trading early breaks in the set.

The tiebreaker was tied up at 4-4 with both the players securing a mini-break each. Fognini then changed gears and won three consecutive points to secure the first set 7-6(4) after 1 hour and 9 minutes of exhausting tennis.

Set two

The second set was started with a very long game with Murray meaning two breakpoints but couldn’t take advantage of it as the Monte-Carlo champion held a crucial opening service game.

Murray and Fognini were delivering as expected. The three-time Grand Slam champion saved a breakpoint and held his serve at 2-2 before breaking Fognini in the next game. Murray further put Fognini on the backfoot as he broke again to serve for the set at 5-2. The Brit closed the second set 6-2 in 50 minutes and forced the match to the deciding set.

Set three

While Fabio Fognini was struggling to hold his serve, Andy Murray held his service games quite comfortably till the first six games of the deciding set.

Murray then went on to break Fognini to serve for the match at 5-4. The 2016 champion, however, could not serve out the match as he was broken back as the Italian was back on serve.

During a point in the game, the chair umpire, Fergus Murphy said that the ball was bounced twice when Fognini stretched to return the ball. However, Fabio Fognini was frustrated as he denied the decision, which was a very close one from the umpire.

Murray once again put Fognini on the back foot he earned himself a second chance to serve out for the match after breaking the 10th seed at 6-5.

During the changeover, Andy Murray and Fabio Fognini were involved in the battle of words as the Briton told the Italian to “shut up”.

Murray to chair umpire: “Fergus, listen what happened. When I had the ball on top of the net he shouted. (turns to Fognini who keeps talking) Shut up!”

However, amid the drama, Fabio Fognini broke back to force the match to the deciding tiebreaker. The Italian was all over Murray in the tiebreaker as he won the set 7-6(2).

Cold handshake from Murray!!!

Fognini will face the winner between Taylor Fritz and Karen Khachanov in the third round of the Shanghai Rolex Masters 2019.