Paris: Top seed Andy Murray eased into the last 16 of the French Open 7-6 (8-6), 7-5 6-0 over a flagging Juan Martin Del Potro at the Roland Garros here Saturday.
Murray did enough to keep his nose in front throughout, while the giant Argentine was unable to reprise the heroics that saw the pair produce such magic in last year’s Rio Olympics gold medal match.
Del Potro needed a good start against the World No.1, but when he lost a tight first set tie-break, the stage was set. It was an epic first set that lasted 85 minutes and losing that opener on a disputed line call cut Del Potro deep.
Murray jogged to his seat at the changeover, the Argentine stood at the net, bent at the waist, his head resting on the netcord. There he stayed until the umpire called time.
The pair traded blows in the second set with Murray creeping ahead. But a monumental effort by Del Potro saw him break back for 5-5, only to instantly drop serve again as Murray yanked him around the court with tight angles, drop shots and lobs. This time the Scot would make no mistake and crunched it out with his fourth ace of the match.
Del Potro’s spirit was broken, and the vocal Paris crowd was quelled. With some exquisite returning and acutely angled ground-strokes, Murray raced through the final set easily in just 21 minutes to close out the match.
It was easy for third seed Stan Wawrinka who also fought through a tough first set to overcome clay specialist Fabio Fognini of Italy 7-6(7-2), 6-0, 6-2. Croatian Marin Cilic also had an easy day in office disposing of Feliciano Lopez 6-1, 6-3, 6-3.
In the women’s singles local girl Alize Cornet rode on the huge crowd support to beat ninth seed Agnieszka Radwanska 6-2, 6-1. However, third seed Simona Halep of Romania, a semifinalist here for the last two years had it easy against Daria Kasatkina 6-0, 7-5. A set up, Halep was down 0-3 in the second. However, she regrouped quickly to catch up at 5-all and then close out the match.
Agencies
