Murray happy to stand in t

It has been many a long year since Andy Murray played second fiddle to his countrymen and women at a major championships but this year’s US Open has been different.

While Johanna Konta, Dan Evans and Kyle Edmund have stolen the limelight in the first few days, the world No 2 has been quietly going about his business, moving through to the fourth round for loss of only one set. His progress has not been spectacular – a good first round, a moderate second round and a distinctly average third round – but he is through to the second week and that is all that matters.

On Saturday, while Evans was thrilling the New Yorkers for more than four hours as he took Stan Wawrinka to five sets, Murray was plodding his way past Paolo Lorenzi, the world No 40 from Italy. He had a game plan but promptly forgot it as the match began while his first serve had been left on the practice court. It was hard work but there was never any doubt that he would claim his victory (he won 7-6, 5-7, 6-2, 6-3); it was just that it was taking a bit longer than anticipated.

“I expected a tough match,” Murray said. “I expected long rallies. I’m just disappointed with the amount of errors I made. I was quite impatient at times. That cost me in the first and second sets.

“When I did sort of play like I was planning on when I went out there, to be more patient, wait for the right balls to go for, I played much, much better, dictated more of the points. I wasn’t going for too much.

“The unforced errors came down significantly and the winners went up. The third and fourth sets were comfortable. Obviously the first two were extremely, extremely tough.”

As a veteran of the grand slam circuit, Murray knows that what happensinthefirstweekisirrelevant once the business end of the tournament approaches. He has not wasted too much energy in the opening rounds, he knows what he needs to improve and now the draw has been whittled

0 Dan Evans returns during his five-setter against Stan Wawrinka. down to just 16 contenders, he is facing old and familiar foes.

Today he faces Grigor Dimitrov for the tenth time in his career. He leads the rivalry 6-3 but last time they met, it was Dimitrov who came out on top. Still, that was at the Miami Open back in March when Murray was still trying to find his feet after taking the whole of February off after the birth of his daughter – it was not his finest hour by any stretch of the imagination. Dimitrov’s win before that was in 2014 in the Wimbledon quarter-finals when the Scot was still on the comeback route from his back surgery at the end of the previous year.

“He’s a very good player, obviously,” Murray said. “He does a lot of things well on the court. He has good feel, moves well. He’s obviously not played his best the last 18 months or so, but definitely the last few weeks has been playing very well, getting back to a level that he’s capable of playing at. It will be another tough one; I expect it to be very hard. I’ll be ready for that. I’ll need to play better than today if I want to win that.”

Two years ago, Dimitrov, pictured right, was leading the charge of the new generation, forcing his way into the top ten and making his claim as a

ANDY MURRAY potential grand slam champ on. But then his progress cam to a grinding halt, his rank ing slipped backwards and h seemed to have lost his way.

That slide has been halte by Dani Vallverdu, Murray former coach, who has bee working with the Bulgarian thi summer. At the last two Master 1000 events he had solid result – a quarter-final in Toronto an a semi-final in Cincinnati – an today’s match is his first fourth round showing at a grand sla since the start of last year.

When Vallverdu left the Mur ray camp at the end of 2014, h joined forces with Tomas Ber dych and, lo and behold, withi a couple of weeks Murray wa playing Berdych in the sem finals of the Australian Open. was not an easy first encounte between the player and forme coach, especially as Vallverdu i one of Murray’s oldest friend

“They all have a lot of strengths. Dan’s an extremely good mover, very talented guy, great feel, great hands. Kyle has huge weapons on the court. And Jo doesn’t have many weaknesses... they’re very different players, different game styles, but they’re all really good”