Murray battles back for win
World number nine Andy Murray defeated the Melbourne heat and a dogged Ivan Ljubicic in a topsy-turvy encounter at the AAMI Classic at Kooyong on Thursday.
In a match lasting close to two hours as temperatures approached 41 degrees, Murray overcame a sluggish start to finish full of running in a 6-7 (7-9) 6-4 6-2 victory.
With neither player able to reach the final of the eight-man invitational event after both lost their opening round-robin matches on Wednesday, this clash was viewed as ideal preparation ahead of next week's Australian Open.
Murray, winner of the season-opening Qatar Open last week, conceded he felt lethargic and was still feeling the effects of jet-lag in losing to Russian Marat Safin 6-1 6-4 on Wednesday - and for a while it looked like the same story against the 19th-ranked Croatian.
The 20-year-old Brit seemed slightly out of sorts in the sweltering conditions, losing the first set in a tie-breaker before going down 0-3 in the second set as Ljubicic dominated.
From there, however, it was all Murray as he won 12 of the last 15 games of the match to overwhelm Ljubicic and square their head-to-head record at 2-2.
"It was obviously hot, but I didn't feel too bad actually. Your legs feel it, but I didn't feel too tired. I felt okay," Murray said after the match.
"I've been doing a lot of training since I got here, so it took a little while to get my legs moving.
"He (Ljubicic) has such a good serve and hits a lot of balls in the middle of court, which you have to anticipate, so maybe that's why it looked like I wasn't moving."
