British fourth seed Andy Murray clawed his way into the French Open quarter-finals yesterday with a courageous 4-6, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, 7-5 defeat of Serbian 15th seed Viktor Troicki.
Murray’s participation in the match, held over from Monday, had been threatened by a pre-match ankle injury, but he battled back from 5-2 down in the deciding set to set up a last-eight clash with unseeded Argentine Juan Ignacio Chela.
Victory keeps Murray on course for a semi-final meeting with top seed and defending champion Rafael Nadal, as he bids to go beyond the last eight at Roland Garros for the first time in his career.
Photo: AFP
Resuming at two sets all after fading light stopped play on Monday evening, Troicki produced some pummeling groundstrokes to save break points in each of his opening two service games.
Troicki was denied a 0-15 lead on Murray’s serve in Game 6 when a ballboy inadvertently ran on to the court while he was mid-smash, but he recovered to break for a 4-2 lead when Murray netted a forehand from the back of the court.
The Scot threatened to break back in the next game, but Troicki saved his third break point of the set, before finishing a taut rally with a skidding backhand winner to move 5-2 ahead.
Having fought back from two sets and a break down to level the match on Monday, Murray found himself requiring another improbable escape act.
Despite holding for 5-3, he looked destined for the exit at 0-30 down on Troicki’s serve, but fought back to 40-30 up and secured the break back when the Serbian patted a tame attempted drop shot into the net.
Troicki, who won Serbia’s crucial point in last year’s Davis Cup final win over France, appeared to lose faith thereafter and conceded a break to give Murray a 6-5 lead when he found the net with a backhand.
Murray spurned three match points in the next game, before finally prevailing with a sensational cross-court backhand winner from well behind the baseline to seal victory in a time of 3 hours, 56 minutes.
A rematch of last year’s final between Spaniard Rafael Nadal and Sweden’s Robin Soderling beckons in the last eight, a round in-form Novak Djokovic gets to skip after Fabio Fognini pulled out of the clay Grand Slam and yesterday’s match with injury.
On Monday night, Maria Sharapova sounded in pain judging by her grunts, but was in fact all smiles as she shot her arms into the air in jubilation after reaching the women’s quarters with an inconsistent 7-6, 7-5 win over Poland’s Agnieszka Radwanska.
There was some cheer for the French fans though as Gael Monfils roared back to overcome seventh seed David Ferrer 6-4, 2-6, 7-5, 1-6, 8-6 and progress to meet Roger Federer yesterday.
Monfils and Marion Bartoli reaching the last eight is the first time two French players have made it so far in their home Grand Slam since 2002.
The Monfils match then finished having been suspended because of bad light on Sunday, before emerging women’s contender Victoria Azarenka thrashed Ekaterina -Makarova 6-2, 6-3.
The women’s draw has been blown wide open by the top three seeds all crashing out.
Seventh seed Sharapova sprinkled the court with unforced errors, but hung in to defeat Poland’s Radwanska with the three-time Grand Slam champion’s title odds shortening as the most experienced name left.
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