Andy Murray progresses through to last-16 of the Dubai Duty Free Championship with victory over Christopher O'Connell

Updated 21/02/2022 at 21:20 GMT

Murray entered the main draw of the tournament on a wild card, while O’Connell progressed through two qualifying rounds to set up this match with the Scot. The Australian is ranked 158th in the world, and impressively managed to reach the third round of his home Grand Slam in Melbourne last month. Up next for Murray is a match against either Alejandro Davidovich Fokina or Jannik Sinner.

Highlights: Murray impresses in comeback win against O'Connell to reach last 16

Andy Murray progressed through into the second round of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championship, with a hard-fought 6-7, 6-3, 7-5 victory over Christopher O’Connell, in a match that lasted just shy of three hours.

"I mean I enjoyed the result. What went on in the middle, not so easy,” Murray said in his on-court interview afterwards.

"I was very frustrated early on in the match, couldn’t quite find my game and he was dictating a lot of the rallies.

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"I managed to serve a little bit better as the match went on which helped me a lot and just managed to tough it out at the end."

He added: "I still feel like I can compete at the highest level. It’s not easy obviously, physically it’s very challenging for me but winning matches like that is obviously very satisfying."

Murray headed into the tournament looking to bounce back from last week’s agonising defeat at the hands of Roberto Bautista Agut in Qatar, after being heavily beaten 6-0 6-1 by the Spaniard.

He entered the main draw of the tournament on a wild card, while O’Connell progressed through two qualifying rounds to set up this match with the Scot.

The Australian is ranked 158th in the world, and impressively managed to reach the third round of his home Grand Slam in Melbourne last month.

Despite his lowly ranking, O’Connell gave Murray plenty of cause for concern in a topsy-turvy first set. Both players broke serve once, before it went to a tie break.

The world number 89 succumbed to O’Connell 7-4 – much to Murray’s frustration.

But to his relief, the second set was much more straightforward and he raced into a 5-3 lead having only dropped five service points up to that stage.

O’Connell looked to had given himself hope of a recovery at 30-0, but Murray went on to win the next four points and claim a 6-3 victory in the second set.

It looked like he may kick on from that point, but the man from Sydney had other ideas in a tense third set that ultimately edged Murray’s way.

At 6-5, Murray had two break points, and O’Connell sent a forehand wide on the first to give Murray the set and match.

Up next for Murray is a match against either Alejandro Davidovich Fokina or the world No 10 Jannik Sinner in the round of 16.

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