He is narrowly ahead of Edmund in the rankings and matched his Wimbledon showing by reaching the third round in NY, where he held match point before losing in five sets to world number three Stan Wawrinka.
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“I’ll need to play better than today if I want to win that”, Murray said after that four-set victory about his upcoming meeting with Dimitrov.
“It was definitely up there”, said Murray.
“I have played well against him in the past but he likes these conditions”, said Murray.
Evans and Edmund have been in sparkling form of late with the latter reaching the fourth round of a Grand Slam for the first time with memorable wins over Richard Gasquet and John Isner at the US Open.
Swiss third seed Wawrinka will face Marchenko, who won through after Nick Kyrgios retired due to injury after the third set.
“I didn’t give him an opportunity, once I was ahead, to let him back in the match”, the No. 2-seeded Murray said. For sure he has a lot of confidence right now, a lot of matches behind his back. “It was a tough battle and I’m happy to get through”.
Taking 9 of 10 games at the outset, Murray overwhelmed Grigor Dimitrov 6-1, 6-2, 6-2 on Monday night to reach the quarterfinals for the 22nd time in his past 23 Grand Slam tournaments.
Murray was given his toughest test of the opening week in NY. “He’s one of the best players in the world and plays extremely well on hard courts so it’ll be very, very tough”.
Once nicknamed “Baby Fed” for his game’s resemblance to that of Roger Federer, Dimitrov has acknowledged that he slogged through a stretch when he wasn’t liking the sport too much.
The second-seeded Scot recorded a 141mph serve as he exploited an error-strewn display from Dimitrov to complete a 6-1 6-2 6-2 win in NY.
While Murray was troubled early by Italian Paolo Lorenzi, the second seed advanced in relatively comfortable fashion.
Murray hadn’t had to look to his camp like this for guidance for a while – before this encounter he was 24-1, and had reached seven straight finals, winning his third major title at Wimbledon and his second straight Olympic gold medal. Overcome him, and the Scot will face either two-time Grand Slam victor Stan Wawrinka or a rejuvenated Juan Martin del Potro.
He will next play Dominic Thiem, who beat Pablo Carreno Busta, 1-6, 6-4, 6-4, 7-5.
Murray’s opponent in the quarter-final is the unsafe Japanese Kei Nishikori, the world number six.
Sixth seed Kei Nishikori continued to be a French bogeyman, beating a sluggish Nicolas Mahut 4-6 6-1 6-2 6-2.
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The hard-hitting Czech, who shocked Angelique Kerber in the final of the US Open tuenup in Cincinnati, defeated Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-2, 6-4.
