It was only a matter of when she would stand alone on 308, and that when came on Monday courtesy the American’s 6-2, 6-4 fourth round win over Yaroslava Shvedova.
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Bulgarian Dimitrov – who reached No 8 in the world two years ago – and Murray know each other well enough, anyway.
“It’s always good to win by saving match point. But for both of us I think it’s going to be important to try to dictate and be aggressive on the court”, Del Potro said. He’s pretty good, so I expected a tough match.
When Vallverdu split with Murray and started working with Tomas Berdych, it caused tension which spilled over in wife Kim Murray’s X-rated outburst during the 2015 Australian Open semi-final.
“We are confident that we can do the job although we know we are up against an Argentina team with impressive strength in depth, and of course the return to form of Juan Martin del Potro makes their team stronger again”. It rarely is. Indeed, hidden in the detail are enough devils to keep Murray occupied for numerous next 48 hours before he plays Dimitrov.
Murray added: “Grigor played his best, but I didn’t really give him a chance to get into the match”.
From the moment Murray broke for a 3-1 lead in the first set, on the back of a 32-shot rally, the outcome of the Arthur Ashe Stadium clash was never in doubt.
According to Matt Wilansky of ESPN.com, this is the sixth time Murray has won a Grand Slam match while losing five or fewer games. I never sleep that long. Dimitrov broke his serve only once before Murray finished off his opponent in just two hours. I did go up in (racket string) tension a little bit from the last match.
Next up for Murray is Japan’s Olympic bronze medallist Kei Nishikori. When you don’t play your best and win, it’s a really positive thing.
Bulgarian Dimitrov had ended Murray’s title defence at Wimbledon in 2014 and came out on top in their last meeting earlier this season in Miami but the second-seeded Scot was firing on all cylinders this time round.
“Today, that type of a match that I played really smart on the big points, I played good when I had to”. They are great conditions to play in. “I’m aware I’ll need to do that again in a couple days if I want to beat him, because he’s one of the best players in the world”. It’s going to be hard match.
“I got a lot of free points with my serve – that was important”.
“I think our styles just kind of fit our games”.
The No.5 seed Simona Halep is also through, thanks to a 6-2, 7-5 victory over the experienced Carla Suarez-Navarro.
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It was a very nice day for Monfils, who was probably (hopefully) in bed watching Rafa Nadal and Lucas Pouille contest a cracking match later on that Pouille won in five, removing a potentially tricky obstacle from Lamonf’s path.
