Murray survives scare to progress but Konta’s out
ANDY MURRAY has been sharing a room with his brother Jamie this week, one of the many aspects that makes this tournament so different from the others he plays.
Yet what has remained constant is the world No 2’s ability to grind out matches under difficult circumstances, which he was forced to do last night in gusting winds against volatile Italian Fabio Fognini.
Gaining remarkable levels of support from the crowd, Murray flirted with unscheduled elimination before coming back in the decider to win 6-1, 2-6, 6-3 and make the quarter-finals.
His British opposite number Jo Konta struggled more with the conditions and her medal hopes ended with a 6-1, 6-2 defeat against Germany’s ultra-consistent world No 2 Angelique Kerber in the last eight. She was left to concentrate on the mixed doubles with Jamie Murray.
Andy sprang a surprise by joining his brother in the mixed, making a last-ditch entry with Heather Watson when Romanians Florin Mergea and Monica Niculescu withdrew. Murray’s singles opponent today will be America’s world No 22 Steve Johnson, a surprise survivor in the men’s last eight.
Murray’s match had massive undulations in the high winds that swept across the Olympic Park. At one stage he lost eight games in a row having been completely in control. He was 3-0 down in the deciding set before he started to convert game point opportunities and took the last six games against an opponent whose mental resolve has never matched his talent.
It had looked like the Scot might be the victim of yet another upset. The unpredictability of this event has to be connected with all the Olympic hullabaloo surrounding it.
In Murray’s case that means staying in the athletes’ village with other tennis players on the same floor as British golfers.
His management had originally booked a luxury apartment outside the athletes’ quarters, but the 29-year-old wanted to move in and room with Jamie instead, for the first time in many years. He has just about managed to retain his focus and customary determination to put himself within one victory of a medal match.
It did not always look that way against Fognini, a wonderful ballstriker who is the last player to have beaten him in a Davis Cup match, the 2014 quarter-final against Italy in Naples.
One surprising aspect was that Murray normally handles the wind so well, having played some of his best matches in such conditions. This time, he said, it was different because the direction was constantly changing.
‘It was really hard out there, with the shadow on the court and wind swirling everywhere,’ he said.
‘I tried to keep fighting. Normally if you have consistent wind you hit the ball with the right spin, but one shot you were with the wind and then the next against the wind, it was very hard.
‘I’m just happy I got through. It wasn’t a great match or pretty at times but I got through it and I won. The atmosphere was great and normally when the crowd gets into it you start playing better but that wasn’t the case.’
One factor regarding the wind may be the absurdly vast playing surface of the main court, which leaves it open to capricious winds.
From 1-1 in the second set he did not win a game for three-quarters of an hour, and he was fortunate that Fognini’s head dropped after a first serve was wrongly ruled out from the chair when the Italian had a point for 4-1.
From there Murray seized the momentum to keep his dream of defending the London 2012 title alive. Last night’s third set may prove to be the key passage of this campaign.
For all the upsets, the last eight is starting to take on the look of a typical high-quality tournament. Rafael Nadal continued his rehabilitation from wrist injury and beat Gilles Simon 7-6, 6-3, giving him a quarter-final against Brazil’s Thomaz Bellucci, who is playing here as if his life depends upon it.
Nadal also assured himself of at least a silver medal when he and Marc Lopez won their doubles semi-final against Canadians Daniel Nestor and Vasek Pospisil 7-6, 7-6.
Juan Martin del Potro is making light of his far longer-term wrist trouble to make it through, while Kei Nishikori could be Murray’s opponent in a semi-final.
For Konta, in a match between two of the game’s biggest improvers, she suffered much more in the wind, making 20 unforced errors in the first set to a mere couple for the uber-steady Kerber.
It was a surprisingly swift for the Brit after she played so well in the early rounds.