Top seed Andy Murray has got his revenge over Albert Ramos-Vinolas after overcoming the Spanish player 2-6, 6-4, 7-6(4), in what was a tense encounter at the Barcelona Open.
The world No.1 had already suffered at the hands of Ramos-Vinolas by squandering a 4-0 final set lead against him at last week’s Monte Carlo Masters. Bidding to get back on track, Ramos-Vinolas once again illustrated his talent with a one-sided opening set.
From that moment on, Murray found himself in an uphill struggle. A close second set saw the Brit successfully save five break points before converting one of his own to force a decider. Still, there world No.1 struggled to generate consistency on the court with an unforced error count of 52, 18 more than his rival. The patchy display almost cost him the match as Ramos-Vinolas served for the win at 5-4. To the relief of the Murray camp, he wasn’t able to close out the proceedings with the Brit drawing upon his experience to get him through.
Surviving the scare as well as the animated crowd backing their home player, a forehand at the net moved the Brit to three match points in the deciding tiebreaker. Failing to convert his first, Murray got better fortune on his second after a backhand from Ramos-Vinolas drifted beyond the baseline.
“That’s tennis,” Murray said during his post-match interview. “Last week it seemed like I was going to win, with four games leading in the third set, and I lost. And today Ramos has had great opportunities. I think I’ve learned to take mine. I have been going more and more to the net I was the one more aggressive at the end. I’m very happy”.
Thiem awaits
In the semifinals Murray will play fourth seed Dominic Thiem. The Austrian was in clinical form as he thrashed Japan’s Yūichi Sugita 6-1, 6-2, in under an hour. Thiem’s impressive display saw him win 52 out of the 78 points played and convert 6/8 break points.
“Today the conditions were very good for my game,” Thiem was quoted by atpworldtour.com as saying. “It’s a little bit higher bounce. Yesterday was really tricky, very cold.
“Today was my best match. I was very focused and aggressive from the beginning. I knew he was in great shape after beating three great players before me. My game plan was to take him out of his comfort zone. I sliced a lot and tried to play with high spin.”
Murray currently leads Thiem 2-0 in their head-to-head, but hasn’t played him since 2015.
