Andy Murray was set for a blockbuster 1st round matchup in Winston-Salem against Nick Kyrgios but things got complicated once the Aussie pulled out.
The withdrawal came fairly late in the day with Murray fully expecting to face Kyrgios and try to win for the 6th time in seven matches. However about 20 minutes before the match Murray was notified he would be facing a lucky loser about whom he knew nothing about.
On that Andy said:
“Originally I was playing Nick and he had an injury to his knee so wasn’t going to play. I didn’t know if I was going to play tonight.
They said if I was playing against a qualifier then I wouldn’t play and then I drew a lucky loser… so then I was playing Noah… It was tricky."
Murray took some time to find his rhythm at the start but once he did he raced past Rubin 6-2 6-0. On the match itself Murray said:
“It’s a bit tricky but obviously after the first few games, I started to get a bit more comfortable and then towards the end he was struggling a bit. Unfortunately I know he’s from here and that’s great. It was a nice atmosphere to play in and everything but my job is to try to win the match.”