Murray crashes on clay
Coric skittles world No.1 in straight sets to sail into Madrid quarters
Madrid, May 11: World number one Andy Murray’s slump in form continued as he crashed out of in the Madrid Masters third round 6-3, 6-3 to lucky loser Borna Coric on Thursday.
Defending champion Novak Djokovic did ease into the quarterfinals, though, with a 6-4, 7-5 win over Feliciano Lopez.
Coric was only handed a late reprieve to enter the draw in Madrid after losing in qualifying to Mikhail Kukushkin.
However, Murray cut a frustrated figure as he was swept aside by 20year-old Croatian for the second time in the pair's four meetings.
Coric broke the fragile Murray serve three times in the first set under the roof at the Manolo Santana centre court due to rain in the Spanish capital.
And one poor service game from the Wimbledon champion cost him dear in the second as Coric served out for the match to set up a quarterfinal meeting with Grigor Dimitrov or Dominic Thiem.
Djokovic has had his own struggles of late.
The Serb parted ways with his coaching staff of 10 years last week after also suffering early exits at the Australian Open and Monte Carlo Masters.
However, he believes he is making slow but steady progress after seeing off Lopez and a partisan crowd to reach the last eight.
“If you’re playing against a Spanish player in Madrid, it's obviously a different game, it's a different feeling, they have a lot of support. You need to kind of hold your nerve, hold your concentration, and use all the necessary energy at the right moments. ”Djokovic was dominant on serve throughout, facing only one break point in the opening game of the second set.
And the 12-time Grand Slam champion applied just enough pressure at the right time to break Lopez's serve in the final game of both sets.
Djokovic faces a much tougher test on Friday against world number eight Kei Nishikori, who earlier swept aside David Ferrer 6-4, 6-3. Nishikori has only won two of their previous 13 meetings.
“Novak is someone that I don't have good record,” said the Japanese.
Bopanna, Cuevas knocked out
Rohan Bopanna and his parter Pablo Cuevas have been knocked out of the Madrid Open, their second consecutive firstround exit on the ATP World Tour.
Bopanna and Cuevas lost their opening match of the elite clay court event 3-6, 2-6 to Fabrice Martin and Daniel Nestor.
They had also made a first round exit at the Barcelona Open, where they had lost to Henri Kontinen and John Peers.
With Bopanna’s tame defeat, India’s challenge has ended at the Euro 6,408,230 clay tournament.
Yuki shocks top seed
Karshi (Uzbekistan): Yuki Bhambri shocked top seed and world number 96 Sergiy Stakhovsky to breeze into the singles semifinals of the Karshi ATP Challenger, here on Thursday.
It was first win over a top-100 player this season for the 273-ranked Indian, who outplayed the Ukrainian 6-2, 6-4 in one hour and 10 minutes.
The Indian saved the only breakpoint he faced in the match and broke his opponent thrice.
It will be third semifinal of season for Yuki on the ATP Challenger Tour, having reached the lastfour stage of Zhuhai and Shenzen events in March.