Andy Murray hammers Gilles Simon in quarterfinal – Western & Southern Open 2011
Frenchman Gilles Simon lost his way in the Cincinnati Open falling against the world No.4, Andy Murray in straight sets. Playing at the sensational hard court at Lindner Family Tennis Center, Ohio, USA the two head banged for 93 minutes before the British world No.4 cleared his way to walk on to the semis’.
The Masters 1000 quarterfinal round started off on Friday, 19th August as the British took his stand on one side of the hard circuit. Murray has been in glorious form as he performed splendid formerly. Winning 8 out the 10 matches, the world No.4 was well motivated for his quarter-final run against the Frenchman.
However, the Frenchman was now more of a scare for the top shots. Clearing off with David Ferrer in the 3rd round, the 26-year-old had a boosted confidence level that played to his advantage. Although the Frenchman had a perfect record in the past 10 fixtures, 8 wins, he still could not surpass the British world No.4
Historically the two have met in several occasions. Adding to that, Simon and Murray have gone head-to-head on all troughs as well. However, the taller and stronger world No.4 has been up to the mark. Winning 7 out of the total 8 fixtures, Murray has indeed stood out undefeated.
Kicking off with the match, Simon opened up, serving first, however, lost a breakpoint to the British. Murray followed his challenger losing on his serve and levelling the scores at 1-1. The scores levelled up once again at 2-2 before Murray broke the World No.12 and took the lead.
With score at 5-3, Murray took over the set breaking the world No.12 once again winning 6-3 and onto the set 2.
The second set was not much different that the first. Murray opened the set winning game 1. The Frenchman stuck back to level the scores in game 2, 1-1. Serving next, the British world no.4 won back-t0-back games breaking the Frenchman in game 4 and leading 4-1 after game 5.
Standing up stronger in both the sets, Murray dominated further in set 2 to end the set with the same score as set one, 6-3, and taking away the match 6-3, 6-3.
Chairing the semi-final, Murray will now face the mighty Mardy Fish, the world No.7 in the next round. Although ranked higher, Murray has fewer chances to win as the American has been in mind-blowing form lately, making his semi-final spot upsetting world No.2 Rafael Nadal.
Tags: