Frustrating times for Andy Murray

12:04 PM ET

PARIS — Like the buzzing gnat that hovers near your ear — but manages to stay perpetually out of reach — Radek Stepanek has the propensity to be, well, annoying.

At one point Tuesday afternoon after a Stepanek serve swerved off the frame of his racket, Andy Murray literally took his hat off to the 37-year-old Czech Republic player. He didn’t mean it as a compliment; Murray tore it from his head in utter disgust.

In the end, the No. 2-seeded Murray overcame the smooth counterpuncher and, not unimportantly, himself. Only two points from defeat on two occasions, Murray came back to win 3-6, 3-6, 6-0, 6-3, 7-5 in a match that required 3 hours and 41 minutes to complete over two days.

Andy Murray nearly fell in the opening round of a Grand Slam for the first time since 2008. Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

Afterward, Murray made more news by responding to recent charges from former coach Amelie Mauresmo in an interview with L’Equipe that his churlish on-court behavior — precisely, the sort of angry, hat-grabbing stuff we saw Tuesday — was what caused the end of their nearly two-year run together earlier this month.

“Me and Amelie have a very good relationship, and I don’t think it’s fair to try to say otherwise,” Murray said in his postmatch news conference. “When we sat down in Madrid — anyone who said it’s heated is lying and was not there. It was far from heated. We spoke very calmly the whole time.

“And to say that the reason that we stopped working together is because of my behavior on the court, that is not true. In Madrid, when we spoke, we didn’t discuss that.”

The breakup of Grand Slam …

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