French Open 2012: Andy Murray fights back from brink of retirement to beat a bewildered Jarkko Nieminen Although Murray had come into this French Open under the shadow of a persistent back problem, yesterday's spasms originated in a slightly different area. He said that he felt it as soon as he got out of bed. I woke up this morning and couldn't put any weight on my left leg. After a painful practice session on court, Philippe Chatrier, Murray and his physio, Andy Ireland, discussed whether it was worth going ahead with the match. The advice, as he explained last night, "was that by playing you're not going to do any permanent damage, so go out and give it a go, see how it feels." At 4-0 in the first set to Nieminen, it must have felt pretty rotten. That was the moment when Murray's serve slowed to under 70 mph, which is about the level you might expect from the amateurs at the local club. At the next changeover, the trainer arrived to manipulate his spine, as he lay face down on the clay like a man who had been felled by a sniper. At this stage, it appeared that a retirement was inevitable. But Murray has only once pulled out of a match on the ATP Tour, when he snapped a wrist tendon against Filippo Volandri in Hamburg five years ago. He can play the hypochondriac at times, and the anguished clutch at his knee or hip is a regular sight when matches are going against him. But, when you come down to it, he fights to the end, unless physically prevented from doing so. Nieminen extended his lead to 6-1, 4-2 without producing any particularly remarkable tennis. But Murray's vital signs were improving game by game, as expressed most obviously in the speed-gun readings on his serve. By the middle of the second set, he was up to over 100 mph - not express pace for a man who usually tops 130 mph, but fast enough to be competitive. Now came the turnaround, as Nieminen froze on the verge of what would surely have been a decisive two-set lead. Like countless players before him, he was clearly distracted by the plot twist provided by Murray's injury. "I'm not happy," the Finn admitted afterwards, "because I feel like I had him. I felt that I should have taken the second set. Obviously, he's one of the best players in the world, and then he's like limping and suddenly he's playing again. It's not an easy situation. If some of this sounds familiar, it is probably because Murray rolled his ankle badly against Michael Berrer in the third round of last year's French Open, and came through courtesy of a meltdown from his opponent. Berrer later admitted that the situation "was making me so tight I couldn't really focus or think clearly." In the end, the final two sets were almost as uncompetitive as the first, except that this time, it was Nieminen who was disintegrating. And it was a mental, rather than physical, issue. Murray confirmed on Thursday night that he would press ahead with the tournament, however his back feels in the lead up to tomorrow's third-round match against Santiago Giraldo. If he can emulate last year's effort, when he carried that wonky ankle all the way to the semi-finals, he will deserve every plaudit he gets.