London: World No. 2 Andy Murray was in brilliant touch as he eased past his opponent Tommy Robredo in his third-round match of Wimbledon here on Friday. With two out of the big four already out of the race, the Scott took two hours and a minute to wind up the tie against the 32nd seed and won the match by 6-2, 6-4, 7-5, which is his third consecutive straight-sets victory.
Murray was playing the game at his pace and with the serve coming off brilliantly, it was just too good for his Spanish opponent. Robredo did put up his best foot forward against magnificent Murray but that wasn’t enough. Murray’s groundstrokes gave his counterpart a run for his money and very soon it was clear that skilled Murray meant some serious business on the court.
Robredo made an impressive start with 124mph ace and held serve comfortably. But Murray didn’t give him much of a breathing space and broke to get the first break point on his next serve. The situation went from bad to worse for Robredo when he held the serve again and managed to lead by 40-0 but Murray’s brilliance overhauled his lead and he went down by 1-4 quite soon. Murray did lose his own serve when he mistimed a drop shot but he got his act all-together to claim the opening set in just 35 minutes.
Murray continued to show his ascendancy as he broke Robredo at the start of the second set with his backhand. After that, he didn’t look back and went onto win the second set in 44 minutes. Two sets down, Robredo did try to pull up his socks in the thrid set and gave some serious competition to Murray which was a sheer entertainment for the fans.
However, it was getting tough for Robredo to figure out the serve of Murray and with the errors in 11th game, he gave a chance to Murray to settle the tie. Murray very well seized the opportunity and registered a third consecutive straight sets win.
Meanwhile David Ferrer of Spain defeated his countrymate Roberto Bautista Agut 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (4), 7-5 and Tommy Haas of Germany beat Jimmy Wang of Taiwan, 6-3, 6-2, 7-5.
Men's SinglesThird Round
Andy Murray (2), Britain, def. Tommy Robredo (32), Spain, 6-2, 6-4, 7-5.
Jerzy Janowicz (24), Poland, def. Nicolas Almagro (15), Spain, 7-6 (6), 6-3, 6-4.
Adrian Mannarino, France, def. Dustin Brown, Germany, 6-4, 6-2, 7-5.
Jurgen Melzer, Austria, def. Sergiy Stakhovsky, Ukraine, 6-2, 2-6, 7-5, 6-3.
Second Round
David Ferrer (4), Spain, def. Roberto Bautista Agut, Spain, 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (4), 7-5.
Tommy Haas (13), Germany, def. Jimmy Wang, Taiwan, 6-3, 6-2, 7-5.
Alexandr Dolgopolov (26), Ukraine, def. Santiago Giraldo, Colombia, 6-4, 7-5, 6-3.
Jeremy Chardy (28), France, def. Jan-Lennard Struff, Germany, 6-2, 5-7, 7-6 (6), 7-6 (4).
Grega Zemlja, Slovenia, def. Grigor Dimitrov (29), Bulgaria, 3-6, 7-6 (4), 3-6, 6-4, 11-9.
