World number two Andy Murray sailed into the quarter-finals of the China Open after a 6-2 6-1 win over Andrey Kuznetsov.
Despite the easy scoreline, Murray was very poor on serve throughout the match, however, especially in the first set, where he was broken twice in the first and fifth games, as Kuznetsov took the match to the top seed. Despite Kuznetsov’s early aggression, Murray remained on task as he broke four times in the set to grab it from the Russian 6-2.
The 29 year old Scotsman continued his superiority as he broke three times throughout the second set to take the match 6-2 6-1 in 1 hour and 16 minutes at the National Tennis Stadium. Despite the win, he only hit 47% of first serves in.
Murray will play fellow Brit Kyle Edmund in the quarter-finals. The world No.2 expressed the difficulty of playing a friend like Edmund, “On the day of the match, it’s always a little bit uncomfortable, because normally when you see your friends and stuff in the locker room, you have a chat, joke around a bit. But on match days, it always tends to be a little bit more serious.” Murray will now be playing his 10th quarter-final in a row on Friday.
The other afternoon session match saw Alexander Zverev extend his latest winning streak to seven matches after he downed Jack Sock 6-4 6-2. Zverev raced to a fast start by breaking the American in the first game to go up an early break. Zverev kept his momentum as he grabbed the opening set 6-4. He then broke twice in the second set to complete victory on Lotus court in just over 1 hour and 10 minutes.
Zverev praised his performance after the match, saying “I thought I served very well, played very aggressively and returned pretty good.” The German will continue his top 20 push on Friday against sixth seed David Ferrer.
