Murray into last eight

 

Originally published on: 26/02/10 12:25

Murray was again far from his best but, as with Thursday’s play, his Italian counterpart could not capitalise and the Scot added a 6-4 second-set win to his earlier 7-6 tie-break victory.

Murray initially looked like he would have to contest a third set as he started proceedings sluggishly.

Fognini closed out his first service game to level the scores at 1-1 in the second set, then broke an error-prone Murray to take the lead.

He successfully held his next serve against the British number one to take control at 3-1 up but from then on Murray found his feet on a surface he has yet to fully get to grips with.

The Dunblane-born player almost missed the chance to open his account for the morning, making an unforced mistake from the baseline on game point, but he accepted his next chance to take the score to 3-2.

By now Fognini’s discipline was wavering and Murray scented the chance to get an early finish ahead of a tougher afternoon assignment against one of David Nalbandian or Nikolay Davydenko.

He broke his opponent’s serve to love in the next game before holding his own in some style to take the lead.

Fognini was back in the game at 4-4 but Murray won the next two and converted the second of three match points to seal the win.

The Briton’s last-eight match is the final match on centre court Friday.

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