Murray eased through to the US Open quarter-finals on Monday night with a thumping win over Grigor Dimitrov while Jamie Murray is through to the last eight of the doubles.
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Murray will be on Arthur Ashe Stadium Court against Grigor Dimitrov, who has beaten Murray three times and won their only clash this season on the slow hard courts of Miami.
Nishikori, who became the first Asian to reach a grand slam men’s final two years ago in Flushing Meadows, has had a strong season, including a run to the quarters at the Australian Open before falling to eventual victor Novak Djokovic.
For good measure, Murray sent down his fastest ever serve of 141mph (226.9km/h) at the end of a set where he allowed Dimitrov just five points on his service.
‘I served 145 at San Jose once but they recalibrated the gun the next day because it was wrong.
Of Monday’s fastest serve, Murray said: “I think that was lucky”.
Murray was credited with a serve in excess of 140 miles per hour (225.3 km), fastest of his career. “I played a really good match against him in Rio a few weeks ago so it will be hard”. “The toughest matches are ahead for him here and he’s played so much over the summer”. But once I got up in the score, wasn’t giving him any free points, I could sense it was getting tough for him.
He added: “There was a lot of different emotions going on in that match and I thought it was a bit unfair”.
The world No 2, who is through to the last eight of the US Open, could face in-form Juan Martin del Potro in the best-of-five series at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow from 16 September. “I played a good match against him a few weeks ago [in the semi-finals of the Olympics] and I’ll need to play like that again”.
Williams’ opponent Thursday will be 10th-seeded Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic, who beat the 34-year-old American’s older sister Venus in the fourth round. I played Berdych a few times after that and had no issues dealing with it. When you’re not playing, as I said the other day, when you don’t play your best and win, it’s a really positive thing. We play each other already this year at Wimbledon.
“Today I ran out of fuel, I think, physically and mentally”, said the Bulgarian. “You never want to win a match like this. We’ve had good results so far, he helped turn my year around when I was struggling”.
“When I made the decision to do the surgery, I always believed I will come back, for sure”.
Tomorrow, Novak Djokovic returns against Jo-Wilfred Tsonga.
‘That’s the beauty of an individual sport, ‘ he continued, ‘Just because you play badly a couple of days ago didn’t mean I was going to play badly tonight.
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Murray plays down the role he’s played in developing Edmund and Evans, insisting that they deserve all the credit for turning themselves into world class players.
