ATP World Tour No. 4 Andy Murray raced into his second Sony Ericsson Open quarter-final with a crushing 6-1, 6-0 victory over Serbian Viktor Troicki on Tuesday at the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tennis tournament in Miami.
The Scot surrendered just five points behind his first serve and converted five of 11 break points to dismiss the 41st-ranked Troicki in just 58 minutes. Murray was a semi-finalist in Miami two years ago, when he lost to eventual champion Novak Djokovic.
Assessing his performance, Murray said: "I didn't make a lot of mistakes. High percentage of first serves. Used my slice well. Just kept thinking all the way through the match. Right from the start, to get a break early, kind of set the tone for the rest of the match. He didn't really recover from that."
The 21-year-old Murray, who has started the 2009 season with a career-best 23-2 record, is bidding for his third ATP World Tour Masters 1000 title after reaching the final at three of the past four events. He captured the titles in Cincinnati (d. Djokovic) and Madrid (d. Simon) last year and finished runner-up to Rafael Nadal in the Indian Wells final last week.
Murray will have the chance to avenge his Australian Open defeat to Fernando Verdasco in the Sony Ericsson Open quarter-finals after the Spaniard cruised past Czech No. 18 seed Radek Stepanek 6-2, 6-2. Verdasco saved the two break points he faced in the encounter and converted four of the seven break point opportunities he created on Stepanek’s serve to wrap up his second win in five meetings (2-3 record) over the Czech after 71 minutes.
World No. 9 Verdasco, who won his 200th tour-level match with his opening round victory over Benjamin Becker, is through to his second straight ATP World Tour Masters 1000 quarter-final and his first in Miami. Last week he lost to No. 2 Roger Federer in the Indian Wells quarter-finals.
Sixth-seeded Argentine Juan Martin del Potro broke serve five times as he dismissed Spanish No. 11 seed David Ferrer 6-3, 6-2 in 79 minutes.
The Tandil native reached his first ATP World Tour Masters 1000 quarter-final in Madrid (l. to Federer) last year and also advanced to the last eight in Indian Wells (l. to Nadal) last week. Del Potro could have the chance to avenge his Indian Wells loss to Rafael Nadal in the next round, if the World No. 1 defeats Switzerland’s Stanislas Wawrinka.
(From Website : http://www.atpworldtour.com/TENNIS/1/EN/NEWS/NEWSARTICLE_2882.ASP)
