Andy Murray reaches the quarter-final round; Mikhail Kukushkin retires – Australian Open 2012
World number four, Andy Murray of the Great Britain, literally faced no trouble in overcoming the 92nd ranked Kazakh opponent, Mikhail Kukushkin, in the fourth round of the Australian Open on Monday. The fourth seed
was leading the match 6-1, 6-1, 1-0, when the unseeded Kukushkin pulled out of the contest with an injury, letting Murray into the quarter-finals of the Grand Slam Down Under.
The fourth round encounter between the two competitors lasted for just 49 minutes before Murray was declared the winner. It was a brilliant display of sheer ascendancy and composure from the world number four, who dominated every
second of the curtailed version of the game. Local crowd at the Rod Laver Arena was already anticipating an easy win for the Briton but didn’t think that it would be that easy.
Kukushkin had a sensational run in the initial rounds of the star-studded event in Melbourne but was not in his best on Monday. He registered huge upsets in the second and third round of the Australian Open last week, defeating
the 19th seed Viktor Troicki and 14th seen Gael Monfils to book a battle with the fourth ranked Scott. Kukushkin’s sloppy game play clearly depicted his lack of physical fitness and fatigue right from the beginning of the match. Most
of his strokes landed long and wide of the court and he committed 27 unforced errors to drop the opening two sets.
The belligerent fourth seed kept his momentum rolling from game one and sustained his authority over the match to bag the first two sets in just 44 minutes of play. He nailed a total of seven serve breaks and secured 15 out of
22 first serve points in the match before his opponent pulled out of the contest to let him through to the final eight.
Murray will take on the winner of the match between 24th seed Kei Nishikori of Japan and the world number six, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France, in his next matchup. Nishikori and Tsonga will go one-on-one against each other
at the Hisense Arena later on Monday afternoon and the winner will meet Murray for a place in the semis of the Australian Open.
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