It was an ideal Friday afternoon for David Ferrer and Andy Murray. The two World Tour Finals hopefuls won their respective quarterfinal matches at the Valencia Open and also saw fellow London contender Milos Raonic lose to David Goffin in Basel. Grigor Dimitrov, a more distant London possibility, bowed out as well.
Murray began the day with a hard-fought 6-7(3), 6-4, 6-4 victory over Kevin Anderson. The 10th-ranked Scot started slow but broke Anderson twice in the second set and faced no break points on his own serve in the third.
“It was very tough,” Murray admitted. “There were a lot of long games; long rallies. I started to read his serve a little bit better at the end of the second set. I was creating a lot of chances on his service games. I improved my serve throughout the match. That was really the difference, but it was extremely close. I just managed to get through.”
“It was very tough,” Murray admitted. “There were a lot of long games; long rallies. I started to read his serve a little bit better at the end of the second set. I was creating a lot of chances on his service games. I improved my serve throughout the match. That was really the difference, but it was extremely close. I just managed to get through.”
Ferrer had a much easier day at the office. The top-seeded Spaniard booked his semifinal spot by rolling over Thomaz Bellucci 6-1, 6-2 in one hour and seven minutes. Ferrer and Murray will face each other for the third time in the last 17 days, having previously squared off in Shanghai and Vienna.Even the loser of Saturday’s showdown will finish the week ninth in the race, because neither Raonic nor Dimitrov can make the jump. Raonic fell to Goffin 6-7(3), 6-3, 6-4 and Dimitrov went down to Roger Federer 7-6(4), 6-2.
An all-around interesting day in Basel also saw what was likely Rafael Nadal’s final appearance in 2014. An out-of-sorts Spaniard got upset by 17-year-old wild card Borna Coric 6-2, 7-6(4). Nadal, who withdrew from the Paris Masters and is doubtful for London, lost the first five games of the match.
Coric inteview:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOiCbSTTwsA]
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