Andy Murray races into quarter-finals of Shenzhen Open
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Version 0 of 1. Andy Murray continued his quest to reach the season-ending ATP World Tour finals by booking his place in the quarter-finals of the Shenzhen Open in China. Murray started the week in 11th place in the Race with only the top eight guaranteed a place at the lucrative event at the O2 Arena in November. His desire to qualify took him to Shenzhen where he began his campaign with a comfortable 6-3, 6-3 win over India’s Somdev Devvarman on Thursday in his first match since tweeting in support of Scottish independence, which prompted widespread abuse on the social media site. Murray, seeded second, proved a cut above his world number 141-ranked opponent, breaking twice in the first set without reply. Devvarman rallied to break the Scot in the second but Murray converted both of his own break-point opportunities to move through in one hour and 21 minutes. In the quarter-finals Murray will play Slovakia’s world number 85, Lukas Lacko, who beat Ricardas Berankis of Lithuania 6-4, 7-6. The top seed, David Ferrer, suffered an upset as he was beaten 6-3, 6-4 by the Serbian qualifier Viktor Troicki. Troicki fired 13 aces on his way to victory in just 55 minutes. The Colombian sixth seed, Santiago Giraldo, ended the run of the 18-year-old Australian Thanasi Kokkinakis 6-4, 6-3. |