Murray closes in to his 500th Win as Nadal crashes out!
Andy Murray won easily against Colombia’s Santiago Giraldo in the third round of the Miami Open 6-3, 6-4 in less than an hour and a half. The world No4 continued his commanding form displayed in the previous match against Donald Young on Friday. What is impressive of this victory is that Murray, had lost to Giraldo at last year’s Madrid Open. The British No1 took full advantage of the Colombian’s weak second serve but serving for the match at 5-2, he wasted two match points, Giraldo managed to break the Scot for the first time. Murray regrouped to seal the win, the 499th of his career, on his next service game, to set up a meeting with Kevin Anderson in round four. “I felt like I played a good match,” Murray said. “When he started really going for it at the end I lost my timing a bit but I managed to close it out at 5-4.” The world No1, Novak Djokovic, survived a second-set fight back from Martin Klizan of Slovakia before winning his opening match 6-0, 5-7, 6-1. He will face the Belgian qualifier Steve Darcis in the next round and a top tennis tipster has him as the winner next Sunday. Japan’s Kei Nishikori made a confident start by beating Russia’s Mikhail Youzhny 6-2, 6-1 in their second-round meeting. Nishikori, the No4 seed, won 70% of his service points and converted five of his 16 break chances. In the women’s draw, the seven-time champion Serena Williams needed only 41 minutes to beat the 15-year-old American CiCi Bellis 6-1, 6-1. Bellis made headlines by winning a match at last year’s US Open, but she could not stay with the world’s No1 player. Williams won 51 of the 65 points and lost only two points in seven service games and a top tennis pick would suggest the American as the favourite for this tournament.
The big shock of the tournament though, has to be Rafael Nadal’s defeat to fellow Spaniard Fernando Verdasco.
The second seed, a four-time finalist in Florida who has never won the tournament, will have to wait at least another year after going down 6-4, 2-6, 6-3 to his countryman. Nadal fought back well after losing the first set and looked to have all the momentum but was broken to go 3-1 down in the third and Verdasco held his nerve to move into the last-16. There were, however, some other shock defeats for seventh seed Stan Wawrinka and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, seeded 11th and playing in his first competition this year. Wawrinka was edged out by Adrian Mannarino 7-6 (7-4) 7-6 (7-5), while Tsonga was sent packing after a 6-4 7-6 (7-4) defeat to French compatriot Gael Monfils