The Scot, who successfully defended his London 2012 Olympic title at Rio 2016, opted to rest as Britain beat Serbia 3-2 in Belgrade in the quarter-finals of team tennis’ premier global competition.
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“You never want to win a match like this”. A lot of people worry about that or panic and say, “This is bad”.
Nishikori explained how he altered his strategy to better match up with Murray.
The 29-year-old was broken only once in the whole match and produced the fastest serve of his career, at 141 miles per hour, to win the opening set.
The Davis Cup tie begins at the Emirates Arena on September 16, only five days after the men’s singles final in NY.
If this hammering had come in the earlier rounds it perhaps would have been less impressive but Dimitrov is ranked 24th in the world, beat Murray in Miami earlier this year and ousted world number three Stan Wawrinka at Cincinnati last month.
And the way Murray dismantled Grigor Dimitrov in straight sets in the fourth round suggests that his losing run at the hands of the Scot is destined to continue. The ace which he hit to win the first set after just 30 minutes was timed at 141mph, which beat his previous quickest of 138mph, struck against Jurgen Melzer here eight years ago. Between the changeover Murray complained to the tournament supervisor and when play resumed he never won a game again until he was down 0-2 in the fifth.
Both players held their next service game, but Nishikori broke Murray for a third time at 5-5 to set up the opportunity to serve for the match and the 2014 finalist took it to book his spot in the next round. He won that game and the next 4 as well, serving great in the rest of the set and breaking Murray in games 4 and 6, looking superior on the court in those moments.
As Murray broke back in the following game, Dimitrov took a wild kick at a ball in frustration and barely made contact.
Murray is in the midst of his own golden patch with Ivan Lendl, under whom he has still only lost one match, but even in his runs to winning Wimbledon and the Olympics, it is hard to recall a more convincing performance.
The second-seeded Murray was nothing short of dominant against Dimitrov, knocking off the Bulgarian easily.
Earlier this year, he was on the brink of retirement after undergoing three wrist surgeries.
Nishikori admitted the delay allowed him to regroup and adjust his tactical plan with coach Michael Chang, whereas the British No. 1 began to struggle in the more humid conditions. “Certainly not myself”, said Murray. “I don’t know why”, Murray said. I kept good concentration throughout. “I didn’t expect to be in the quarters in my second Grand Slam after my comeback”, del Potro said. Now, though, Murray has a chance to become only the fourth man in the Open era to reach all four grand slam finals in a single season. He’s playing pretty well this summer. The one loss came at the World Tour Finals, where Murray was mentally and physically spent from a long, gruelling schedule in the build up to that tournament.
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Djokovic’s right arm was massaged by a trainer in his first- and fourth-round matches at the U.S. Open, so getting all of these free passes hasn’t been a bad thing.
