ANDY MURRAY RECORDS 50TH TENNIS MATCH WIN, FACES TSONGA NEXT

Written by: Staff on 14th August 2015

ANDY MURRAY RECORDS 50TH TENNIS MATCH WIN, FACES TSONGA NEXT |

Photo by @dkfoto via Instagram.

Andy Murray followed Novak Djokovic’s lead on Thursday at the Rogers Cup in Montreal to record his 50th match win of the season. After the Serbian routed American Jack Sock in the first match on Court Central, the second-seeded Scot dismissed Luxembourg’s Gilles Muller 6-3, 6-2.

The World No. 3 took better advantage of his opportunities during the 65-minute match, converting four of his six break points while saving four of the five faced on serve. He improved to a 10-0 season mark against left-handers.

“I thought I played a good match; returned well,” he said. “First game was important. I served a few break points there. That kind of settled the nerves a little bit. I felt like I got a good read on his serve today… I was able to neutralise his biggest weapon, which is his serve. That was the key to the match.”

Murray is chasing his third title in Canada, following his triumphs in 2009 (d. del Potro) and ’10 (d. Federer), and next faces a rematch with defending champion Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, whom he lost to in the quarter-finals last year in Toronto.

“That was a tough one for me to lose,” Murray said. “I was up a break in that match in the third set. I was going through a difficult period there, having played a poor match at Wimbledon, was struggling a bit with my confidence. I remember that match pretty well. Managed to win against him a few weeks later at the US Open, which was for me a big win. At that time it was very important for me, that one.

“But it’s very different conditions here to Toronto. I would expect a slightly different match. But Jo’s always tough to play against. He will be pumped to try to defend his title here. It will be a tough match.”

Tsonga, the No. 10 seed, closed out a 7-6(7), 6-3 win over Australian Bernard Tomic as he fired 17 aces and capitalised on two of his six break points. The Frenchman will be looking to reach the semi-finals for the fourth time in his five appearances at the Rogers Cup.

Fellow Frenchman Jeremy Chardy rallied to defeat 6’11” Croatian Ivo Karlovic, prevailing 4-6, 7-6(1), 6-4 after two hours and eight minutes. Karlovic, who reached the 10,000 career ace milestone in his upset win over Canadian No. 1 Milos Raonic on Tuesday, struck 18 in the third-round match.

Chardy had snapped a five-match losing streak this week in Montreal, dating back to his fourth-round exit against Andy Murray at Roland Garros. He will be making his second quarter-final appearance at the Canadian ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament (2010, l. to Djokovic).

He will take a 3-0 FedEx Head2Head record into his next match against 6’10” John Isner. The 16th-seeded American, a finalist last week in Washington (l. to Nishikori), did not face a break point in a 7-5, 6-3 win over Australian Nick Kyrgios.

( Courtesy of the ATP and Original Link – http://www.atpworldtour.com/en/news/montreal-2015-thursday-murray-tsonga-chardy )

Topics: Andy Murray, Atp World Tour, Montreal, Rogers Cup, Sports, Tennis News, Tsonga

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10sBalls_com says:

August 14, 2015 at 10:14 am

-@andy_murray RECORDS 50TH #tennis MATCH WIN, FACES @tsonga7 NEXT- http://t.co/mkMGNiaGKQ #Montreal #RogersCup #AndyMurray