Thus the Bulgarian recorded his second victory in their third encounter with Sousa and reached the fourth round of the US Open for the second time in his career.
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The Olympic champion, who successfully defended his title in Rio this year, was regularly crashing down serves close to the 140mph mark while his groundstrokes were sublime.
Not only did Murray take advantage of both break opportunities in the set, but he also won 17 of his 22 service points while giving Dimitrov few opportunities.
Murray added: “Grigor played his best, but I didn’t really give him a chance to get into the match”.
Murray, the second seed, won 6-1 6-2 6-2 and goes on to face Japanese sixth seed Kei Nishikori in the last eight.
He was a break to the good at 2-1 in the fourth before Wawrinka, reinvigorated by a violent racquet smash courtside, recovered to win five of the next six games.
Wawrinka, a former Australian and French Open champion, reached a fourth successive quarter-final in NY with a hard-fought 6-4, 6-1, 6-7 (5/7), 6-3 win over Illya Marchenko, the world number 63 from Ukraine.
After a strong showing in Cincinnati where he would eventually fall to Marin Cilic, he has managed to advance to the fourth round even if it hasn’t been completely comfortable.
“I don’t think he started the match really badly”, said Murray. I wanted to use that to my advantage as the tournament goes on.
But Murray said: “The first time when I played Berdych after me and Dani stopped working together, it was awkward for sure”.
The 40th-ranked Lorenzi put up a gritty fight despite coming off a gruelling five-set, five-hour win over French 30th seed Gilles Simon in his second-round tilt. “I’ll need to play better than today if I want to win that”. The Scot, who struggled in his third round clash on Saturday, was back to his imperious best.
The 2012 US Open champion was almost unstoppable in the first set as he broke Dimitrov twice before claiming the set in just 30 minutes. I was trying to get cheap points, I was going for too much.
Djokovic looked in ominous form during his straight-sets win over Kyle Edmund on Sunday, but Murray insists he drew no extra motivation from the Serbian’s ruthless display against his compatriot.
At No. 142, del Potro is the lowest-ranked US Open quarterfinalist since Jimmy Connors in 1991. “Everything can happen. So I will try to be there”.
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Dimitrov ripped a backhand pass to open up two break points in the very first game but that was as good as it got for the 25-year-old who, after 1-1, lost nine games in a row. The only time Nishikori has defeated Murray was back in 2014 at the ATP World Tour Finals.
