Dubai: Andy Murray and Tomas Berdych eased their way into the quarter finals of the Dubai Duty Free Men’s Open at the Dubai Tennis Stadium on Wednesday.
Third seeded Murray took less than an hour for an emphatic 6-0, 6-2 return to peak form against Joao Sousa, while Berdych celebrated his entry into the 500-wins club with 7-6 (7), 5-7, 6-0 win against Simone Bolelli of Italy.
The landmark win made Berdych the eighth active player on the ATP World Tour and the third one from the Czech Republic — Ivan Lendl and Tomas Smid — to claim at least 500 match wins. The list is led by former world number one Roger Federer, who has a tally of 1003 on the eve of his late game against Fernando Verdasco.
Murray meant business from the start as he broke Sousa in the first and third games for an easy 4-0 lead in good time. A third break and Murray eased his way to a 6-0 stamp of authority in just 21 minutes with the statistics saying it all: Sousa recorded 19 unforced errors compared to five committed by the British player.
Murray started the second set with a break, but saw the Portuguese lad coming up with some resistance as he held for the first time to trail 1-2. However, that was as far as he could go as Murray wrapped it up in 58 minutes and take his head-to-head record to 5-0 against the Portuguese.
“Today I thought I just picked the right shots and played the right way when he was struggling. I didn’t give him any free points. I didn’t make sort of needless errors. I wasn’t just going for shots just because I was up 4 0. I thought I made good decisions and didn’t give him anything for free, and he was getting more frustrated because he couldn’t get any free points and then was going for more and more shots and obviously making more errors because of it,” Murray said.
Berdych, meanwhile, was stretched by his Italian opponent. The Czech looked to be in control despite battling through for 7-6 in the opening set. Bolelli turned things around in the second, breaking the fourth seed in the 12th game to win the set 7-5.
In the decider, Berdych raised his game and rattled the Italian with two quick breaks in the first and third games while holding for a 4-0 lead to finally finish off after two hours and 24 minutes.
Sergiy Stakhovsky, Richard Gasquet and lucky loser Borna Coric were among the others booking their spots in the quarter-finals after early matches. Stakhovsky got the better of Denis Istomin 6-4, 3-6, 6-4; Gasquet laboured to a 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (6) win over Roberto Bautista-Agut. Coric became one of the lucky losers to advance after Baghdatis retired with the score tied 4-4 on the deciding third set tiebreaker.
