Doubles bid wide Open
Jamie Murray said things are finally starting to heat up after he and Neal Skupski reached the US Open quarter-finals.
The pair continued their sizzling form by easing past Brazi l ’s Marcelo Demoliner and Dutchman Matwe Middelkoop yesterday.
The duo were finalists at the Western & Southern Open on the same courts last week and they followed up their firstround win with an easy 6-3 6-2 victory over Demoliner and Middelkoop.
Murray said: “It’s weird because we’ve been here over three weeks but until today it felt like we hadn’t really achieved anything because we’d only played one match at a grand slam.
“Obviously last week we had a good week – we played a lot of matches.”
Murray will now find himself across the other side of the net from Bruno Soares – the man he won the US title with in 2016.
Brazilian Soares and his Croatian partner Mate Pavic were 5-7 7- 6 (5) 6- 4 winners over Jack Sock and Jackson Withrow.
British interest in the singles is over but hopes remain high in the men’s doubles, with Au s t r a l i a n Op en champions Joe Salisbury and Rajeev Ram also through to the last eight.
Meanwhile the top seeds in the women’s doubles, Kristina Mladenovic and Timea Babos, were withdrawn from the competition ahead of their second-round match.
Ml a d e n o v i c was subjected to stringent restrictions because of her contact with Benoit Paire, who tested positive for Covid-19, and a quarantine notice forced the match between the Frenchwoman and Babos and Gabriela Dabrowski and Alison Riske to be cancelled.