Kip kip hooray for Andy!
ANDY MURRAY is finding his comeback so exhausting that he needed to take a nap before performing his post-match media duties at the China Open. The twice Wimbledon champion battled his way into the last eight in Beijing but only after another gruelling contest, overcoming British No 3 Cam Norrie, 7-6, 6-7, 6-1. Murray is having to work hard for the victories, the latest lasting eight minutes short of three hours, and afterwards he said, ‘I’m tired. I just had a sleep before coming here. I mean, I’m really tired.’ Murray could at least rest up, knowing that he had a day off before tackling top seed Dominic Thiem. It will be Murray’s first quarterfinal for a year, a period in which he had a second operation on his hip. Thiem, the world No 5, is the highest ranked player Murray has faced since Stan Wawrinka in the 2017 French Open semi-final, when the extent of his physical problems became apparent. While Murray’s mobility and determination have been impressive, the length of his matches is taking a toll. During one changeover, when Norrie dug in from the baseline to extend his second set lead to 5-2, the Scot appeared to tell his bench that he was ‘absolutely f*****’. Murray’s opponent eventually subsided, as the former world No 1 concentrated on speeding the rallies up. ‘I tried to shorten the points in the second and third set,’ Murray said. ‘When we were playing the long rallies he was getting the better of them, I was getting tired. ‘Me and Cam practised three or four times before we came to Asia and he was getting the better of me. It’s always tricky playing someone you know quite well.’