Andy Murray stayed winless in 2024 after losing his opening-round match against Benoit Paire at the 2024 Montpellier Open.
The French player was not favoured to win this match, and Murray was in a desperate need of a victory, after he struggled at the end of the 2023 season, and also at the start of this season.
For the Brit, every match basically means his career because the terrible finish to last year already raised questions about whether he still wants to play. According to his remarks, he certainly isn't sure, and his performances don't instill much hope either.
To be fair, it started great for the former world no. 1, as he took the opening set 6-2 by jumping on Paire. He served well, which made his service games simple. He attacked the Frenchman's second serve, which created chances, and he took them.
The second set already started to show problems for him. Paire got into the rhythm and played pretty well. After taking an early break, he didn't allow too many chances on his serve.
Eventually, he would give it back, and the set ended up in a tiebreak, which Paire would win 7-5. The final set was a pretty exciting one as Paire jumped out to an early lead but lost it right away.
Murray wasted chances to go up a break, and it proved costly, especially after he used all of his challenges by the fifth game, and couldn't challenge some of the questionable calls, including one on the game point in the sixth game.
Eventually, Paire would break him to set himself up to serve out the match at 5-3. The Frenchman initially couldn't use any of his first four match points, but ultimately, Paire saved it and converted the fifth match point to win the match 2-6, 7-6(5), 6-3.
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