Andy Murray ready to silence the French crowd in battle with Gael Monfils
ANDY MURRAY will have to silence the French crowd if he wants to book a place in the Roland Garros semi-finals.
Eight-time French Open champion Nadal crushed Dusan Lajovic 6-1 6-2 6-1 to notch a record 32 straight wins in the event.
Only
three of the top ten women's seeds are left, with No.5 Simona Halep
defeating Sloane Stephens yesterday to set up a clash with Svetlana
Kuznetsova.
While still not the Folies Bergere, at times it is
like watching the Glee Club with the new, smiley Andy Murray, even in
the midst of battling into last eight in Paris.
He won't make
money in the old nightclub telling jokes but the old racket is dazzling
the crowd as he steadily returns to the form which brought the house
down at Wimbledon last summer.
Understandly, Fernando Verdasco was
not an admirer being too busy chasing around trying to make the tie the
triumph he hoped for rather than the 6-4, 7-5. 7-6 drama that it was.
Even
when Murray sportingly conceded a point in the third set which gave
Verdasco a 4-3 lead, the Spaniard stomped to his chair and delivered a
full, cursing rant at the umpire who did nothing.
Verdasco felt
that Murray had touched his serve when it was called out and began
shouting about it. Murray could have stayed quiet and let Verdasco
completely meltdown but he said he had and that should have ended the
matter.
But then the official also neglected to do anything when
Verdasco kept up his habit of continuing to sit and fuss around when
time was called and Murray was at his end waiting to serve.
These are the kind of tactics which the Scot understands but it does not make it right.
By
that moment, Murray was 2-0 ahead and striking the ball much cleaner,
more accurately and making far fewer mistakes than Verdasco.
The
ideal way through a marathon seven round Grand Slam event is to work to a
peak and Murray has done stepped up in performance in each match so
far.
He hit 135 winners compared with Verdasco which backed up hsi
plan to come in swinging and be more aggressive to try to get the match
over in energy-conserving order unlike his previous two day, five set
war.
This was another improvement as it had to be against the
danger of Verdasco with forehand and doublehanded backhand functioning
superbly, serve more reliable.
He was happy to have created 19
break points, less so that only four of them were converted wheras
Verdasco managed only six opportunities against the world number eight
and took two.
When the match threatened to escape from his control
after he lost serve and found himself in a third set tie-break, the
experience and calmness showed through as he dominated and ended the
match in early evening sunshine rather than cool shadows.
Another level will need to be found when Gael Monfils appears across the net tomorrow with the 
Ferrer went down tamely
twelve months ago as the pressure got to him in the all-Spanish clash
but in April he defeated the number one seed in the quarters at Monte
Carlo.
"I happy with the way I arrived here,"said Nadal after
defeating the lowly ranked Dusan Lajovic 6-1, 6-2, 6-1 to notch a record
32 straight wins in the event.
Others wonder if his run through
has been too easy as he has not dropped a set and has had the easiest
passage but the man to test that theory is Ferrer.
Only three of
the top ten women's seeds are left and the smart money looks like it
should be on Maria Sharapova if she can get past Spain's Garbine Mugurza
today.
Simona Halep seeded a place higher than the fifth ranked
Russian, defeated Sloane Stephens of the USA and will now face a
resurgent Svetlana Kuznetsova who ousted Lucie Safarova. Sara Errani,
the diminutive Italian tenth seed, battled past Jelena Jankovic and now
has Andrea Petkovic, who loves reading philosophy books, to ponder.
Defending
doubles champions Boband Mike Bryan, the top seeds, were beaten 6-4,
6-2 by the 12th-seeded duo of Marcel Granollers and Marc Lopez of Spain.
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