It started at 10.20pm and lasted well over five hours – the second-latest finish to a grand slam singles match in history.
Only Lleyton Hewitt – against Marcos Baghdatis at the Australian Open in the third round of 2008 – can claim to have finished later.
That night – famous and infamous in equal measure – finished at 4:34am, with Hewitt emerging triumphant from the five-set epic.
It should never have happened again. The decision to schedule the match second in Margaret Court Arena’s night session was the height of stupidity.
Thousands of Aussie fans were robbed of the chance to watch a truly sublime Australian Open clash.
This should have been prime time television. And after Murray spent four hours and 49 minutes on court in round one, surely organisers realised that there was – at the very least – a chance this match would be lengthy?
In the fourth set, Murray echoed…
