Three-time grand slam champion Andy Murray has reached his first quarter-final on the ATP Tour in 12 months after prevailing in a all-British clash at the China Open.
The former world No.1 rallied his way to a hard-fought 7-6(6), 6-7(4), 6-1, win over Cameron Norrie. A player who is currently ranked more than 400 places above him in the ATP rankings at 69th. Murray is currently on the comeback from a second hip operation and has missed large chunks of the calendar over the past two years.
“Me and Cam (Norrie) has practiced together three or four times before we came to Asia. He was getting the better of me in all of the practices as well, so I was a bit nervous before the match.” Murray said during his on-court interview.
“I think in the first set both of us were a bit nervous and then in the second we were going for the shots a bit more. It’s always tricky playing somebody you know quite well.”
During the first two sets of the clash, there was little to distinguish between the two players. Who traded breaks in each set. In the opener Murray failed to capitalize on a 5-3 lead before squeezing way way through the opening tiebreaker. However, Norrie hit back in the second by taking advantage of some tentative play from his opponent.
After the cat and mouse chase, it was one-way traffic for Murray in the decider. Norrie’s unforced error count mounted and proved too costly to his chances. Two games in, a Norrie double fault handed Murray a break for 2-0. Minutes later he extended his lead to 4-0 after hitting a deep shot towards the baseline, which drew another mistake from across the court. From then on, it was only a matter of time before the win was Murray’s. Who sealed the win on his first match point after another deep shot forced Norrie to return the ball out.
“I tried to sharpen the points a lot in the second set. In the third I was trying to play more aggressively, coming to the net a lot more and trying to finish the points quickly because when we were playing the long rallies he was getting the better of them.” The reigning Olympic champion commented about his tactics against Norrie.
“I was getting tired so I had to change the way the match was going.”
Murray finished the match with a mixed tally of 40 winners and 40 unforced errors. His reward could be a potential showdown with top seed Dominic Thiem on Friday. Thiem will play China’s Zhang Zhizhen in his third round match later in the tournament.
