Andy Murray Serves Himself Into Fourth Round; Gasquet Up Next

Written by: Staff on 2nd June 2012

Andy Murray Serves Himself Into Fourth Round; Gasquet Up Next

epa03246319 Andy Murray of Britain returns to Santiago Giraldo of Colombia during their third round match for the French Open tennis tournament at Roland Garros in Paris, France, 02 June 2012. EPA/STEPHANE REIX |

(Original Story: http://www.atpworldtour.com/News/Tennis/2012/05/22/Roland-Garros-Saturday-Murray-Serves-Well-In-Third-Round-Win.aspx)

World No. 4 Andy Murray advanced to the fourth round of Roland Garros on Saturday, defeating Santiago Giraldo 6-3, 6-4, 6-4.

The Scot did not drop serve, hitting nine aces, winning 85 per cent of his first serve points and taking 74 per cent of his second serve points. He broke Giraldo once in each set to claim victory in two hours and two minutes.

“I served very well in the first set and that really helped,” Murray assessed. “He started off hitting the ball well and I was able to get a lot of free points on my serve. And once I started to get into the match and got ahead of him, I started hitting the ball well and started dictating all the points.”

Murray is through to the round of 16 in Paris for the fourth straight year, and is looking to build upon his semi-final showing in 2011. The Scot began the season by going 17-3, triumphing in Brisbane, finishing runner-up at the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event in Miami and Dubai, and reaching the Australian Open semi-finals.

With a quarter-final berth on the line, the 25-year-old Murray will face 17th seed Richard Gasquet, who defeated 33-year-old qualifier Tommy Haas 6-7(3), 6-3, 6-0, 6-0. After dropping the first set tie-break, Gasquet broke the German eight times over the next three sets to equal his 2011 performance at the event.

The 20th-ranked Gasquet is just 1-10 in fourth-round matches at Grand Slam tournaments, with his lone win coming at the 2007 Wimbledon Championships en route to the semi-finals. He is trying to end France’s men’s singles major title drought, dating back to Yannick Noah’s 1983 victory at Roland Garros.

Gasquet and Murray have split their previous six meetings. Gasquet won their most recent encounter in the third round of the Internazionali BNL d’Italia in Rome last month, while Murray won their other clay-court meeting two years ago in Paris, rallying from two sets down in a first-round clash.

“I’ve played against him a lot and Danny [Vallverdu] has also seen him a lot, so we’ll have good tactics for the match and hopefully come up with a good game plan,” Murray said.

Topics: 10sballs.com, Andy Murray, French tennis news, Murray, Richard Gasquet, Roland Garros, Santiago Giraldo, Sports, Tommy Haas