Impressive Murray moves into quarters

Andy Murray put in his best performance of the tournament so far to see off the dangerous Marin Cilic 7-5 7-6(4) 6-1. The British No3 seed showed great maturity in weathering the storm when Cilic found purple patches in the first and second sets, before the Croatian No13 seed crumbled in the third, sending Murray through to the quarter-finals to face another big hitter, twelfth seed Fernando Gonzalez. Murray is hardly a veteran on the circuit at the age of 22, and only two years older than his opponent, but the Scot’s experience certainly told today. The Dunblane native refused to be rattled when Cilic began pounding the sidelines, particularly in the second set. He chased down every ball he could, and relied on his serve to get himself out of trouble. And it was Cilic who cracked, at 5-5 in the opener and particularly in the second set tie-break when a series of errors handed Murray a two-set lead. The world No3 can take a whole lot of positives from his solid display on Suzanne Lenglen. His movement was excellent, his serve effective and his all-round hitting clean. Murray’s self-belief was also self-evident, on the surface that least suits his game. A look at the stats (10 aces and only 14 unforced errors) will also please both the player and his entourage. Cilic will be back, at the deep end of Grand Slams, in the near future. When he finds his range, he is very hard to stop, but today he made the wrong shot choices at the wrong time and lost focus at crucial times.