Andy Murray has admitted that he "lost his way" during his five-set victory over wildcard Mathias Bourgue at the French Open this afternoon.
The world number two was forced to come from two sets down against Radek Stepanek in the first round, and he was taken the distance once again today before finally coming through 6-2 2-6 4-6 6-2 6-3 against the world number 164.
At one stage of the contest Murray lost eight games in a row and 24 points from a possible 27, and he acknowledged that he could not continue to make such hard work of his opponents if he is to win at Roland Garros for the first time.
"I lost my way on the court today for quite a while. So to turn it around and find a way to win after a period where I was struggling to win points at one stage, I was losing a lot of games at love. It was a big struggle. It obviously doesn't happen that often where you're struggling to win points. I don't want to play five sets every round and don't want to have big drop-offs in matches," he told reporters.
"But I was trying. I was trying to find a way. It wasn't like I was not there mentally, but I just couldn't find the court. During the match the court did speed up a lot. It was much, much quicker for a period when the sun was out. I was missing a lot of balls long, and his ball was jumping up a lot. I don't know if it was because of that. But I managed to get it back a little bit at the end.
"It was a pretty stressful couple of days [against Stepanek]. Coming back the next day and playing, it's not easy. And the fifth set I played against Radek was tense. But I didn't start the match that way. Normally you would think that you would start the match off a little bit flatter. But there was a period there where I was a little bit flat. So it was tough, but a lot of that is down to the way that [Bourgue] played as well."
Murray, who has now played back-to-back five-setters in Grand Slams for the first time since 2005, will take on Ivo Karlovic in the next round.
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