Andy Murray found top gear on day 6 of the Australian Open when
he produced a master class performance in a breath-taking match with Frenchman Michel
Llodra. Murray made big improvements to his all-round game and in the end
sailed through to the second week winning 6-4 6-2 6-0 in I hour 49 minutes.
The quality of tennis from the start was hard to believe,
but Murray snatched an early break with some aggressive play against the Llodra
serve. However doubles specialist Llodra hasn’t won 3 Grand slam doubles titles
for nothing and looked dangerous showing his talents from the net. But every
time he got a look at the break back the number 4 seed would pull out some
brutal serving to see out a hard fought first set.
The second set went one better, as both players played their
part in some extraordinary rallies. Nevertheless it was Murray who remained
winning the battles with both mind blowing passing shots and net play, leading
to a double break when Llodra failed to capitalise on a drop in Murrays first
serve percentage. Towards the end of the set Llodra himself made little first
serves, as he began to tire falling to a 6-2 deficit.
The final set was not a contest, as an exhausted Llodra was
making all the errors and failed to get on the score board. Murray later said “it
was a fun tennis match which is unusual in a grand slam”. He now moves into the
round 4 where he will meet Mikhail Kukushkin after he beat Gael Monfils in five
sets.
Elsewhere top seed Novak Djokovic crushed Nicolas Mahut with
the loss of just two games while Lleyton Hewitt gave Australia more interest in
the competition after beating Milos Raonic to join fellow country man Bernard
Tomic in round 4. On the woman’s there were easy wins for Petra Kvitova and Maria
Sharapova, as the top five seeds all remain in the tournament.
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