Things couldn’t have gone much better for Andy Murray in Round 1 of the Indian Wells Masters.
The three-time Grand Slam champion defeated David Goffin, 6-3, 6-2, in 80 minutes on Wednesday and, notably, kept the wear and tear to a minimum.
Murray, 36, has indicated this will almost certainly be his last year on Tour, meaning this will be his final trip to Indian Wells, aka “the Fifth Grand Slam.”
And if the betting market is any indication, Friday will likely be Murray’s last match in this iconic tournament.
The Glasgow native is a +400 underdog against World No. 5 Andrey Rublev.
Rublev, last seen getting disqualified for an on-court outburst in Dubai, has been one of the most consistent players on the ATP Tour over the last 24 months.
The Russian is world class from the baseline and is always happy to make matches physical, which is not what Murray wants at this stage of his career.
If you are looking for reasons to back Murray, you could point to the fact that he’s won three of his last five matches and got off the court with minimal fuss against Goffin thanks to an in-form serve.
But Rublev is in a different universe compared to Goffin.
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Murray played as well as he could have hoped for against the Belgian, but he’d need to raise his level (or hope Rublev just isn’t at the races) to make this contest competitive.
You always want to be careful counting out Murray, but it’s been quite a while since he’s won a match against a player of Rublev’s character and the stylistic matchup will do him no favors Friday.
This should be over fairly quickly.
The play: Murray-Rublev Under 21.5 Games (-115, DraftKings).