Andy Murray registered his 500th hardcourt win by defeating Denis Shapovalov with a comeback effort in a first-round match at the Dubai Tennis Championships 2024 on Monday, February 26.

The match began in typical fashion with both Murray and Shapovalov holding their respective serves until the latter broke in the ninth game and walked away with the opening set. The second set witnessed more ups and downs as both players broke each other once to take it to a tiebreaker. Murray eventually edged out Shapovalov to level things up.

The three-time Grand Slam champion didn’t look back from thereon and pushed Shapovalov on the back foot by breaking his serve in the very first game of the deciding set. He further broke the Canadian in the ninth game and secured the match 4-6, 7-6(5), 6-3 after two hours and 33 minutes.

This was only Murray’s second win of the 2024 season, but notably his 500th overall on hardcourt. He became only the fifth man to accumulate at least 500 wins on the surface after Rafael Nadal (518), Andre Agassi (592), Novak Djokovic (700), and Roger Federer (783).

However, Murray’s reaction to the great achievement was a subtle one by all measures.

“Yeah, it’s not bad,” he said laughing. “Yeah, I mean hardcourt has been a great surface for me over the years, and yeah, 500 is a lot of matches. So, I’m very proud of that, obviously the list that you’ve given there’s not many players who have done that. So yeah, great to get to 500 before I’m done.”

Murray’s mother and childhood coach Judy reacted to her son’s achievement and tweeted:

“Typical Scottish understatedness. Fifth on the all-time list behind Agassi, Federer, Nadal and Djokovic. “Not too bad”