Murray made to sweat
Andy Murray spoke cautiously ahead of facing the powerful Fernando Verdasco and in the sweltering sunshine of west London the British No.1 was given a stern test.
Cast your mind back to 2013 at Wimbledon and Murray had to claw his way back from two sets down to surpass the Spaniard on his way to landing the title.
The 31-year-old has been ranked as high as seventh in the world but despite falling down to No.37, Verdasco still has a threatening armoury on court when he hits top gear.
However it was Murray who seized the initiative early on with a rasping forehand down the line to lead 2-0.
At 4-1, Murray was strolling along until Verdasco found a 30 all opening and rather carelessly Murray gifted back the break by dumping a forehand into the net.
Verdasco’s body serves were limiting the three-time Queen’s Club champion but a loose game at 6-5 enabled Murray to capitalise upon some wild groundstrokes to edge the opener 7-5.
It wasn’t pretty but Murray was dealing admirably with Verdasco’s unpredictability. One moment an ace would fly by, the next a series of double faults would follow.
The pair duelled at the net on numerous occasions with both willing to hit squash-like shots to make the bounce awkward as chances on serve were few and far between.
At 5-4 in the second, after no break points on the cards, Verdasco’s guard fell. A couple of double faults and a miscued backhand drew Murray to deuce.
The world No.3 was determined to strike and hit a glorious forehand to reach match point. An uncharacteristic sliced error saw the chance fly-by but another fizzing forehand kept the game alive.
Another horrid double fault from Verdasco presented Murray a third match point and the Scot launched a missile of a return into the corner to progress to the quarter-finals.
“It wasn't perfect, but I felt like I dug myself out of a few difficult situations when I was behind on my serve. Especially in the second set,” said Murray reflecting on his performance.
“But I will definitely need to make sure I start, I think, a bit sharper than I have in the last couple of matches, because I played a couple of sloppy service games early on. When you start playing against the big servers, you can't really afford that.”
Dimitrov down and out
Reigning champion Grigor Dimitrov was out to gain revenge on Gilles Muller, who he lost to on the indoor courts of Rotterdam earlier this year.
The Luxembourg native had needed two and half hours to defeat Mikhail Youzhny in round one but crucially had fired down 37 aces along the way.
Due to stunning sunshine gracing Queen’s Club, the courts are slightly faster this year and that’s playing right into the hands of the big servers.
Muller, “32 years young” and having fought back from 374 in the rankings due to injuries, is serving with devastating pace and assurance.
Dimitrov was forced to go for the lines and a turbulent first set culminated at 5-4 with Muller teasing the errors out of the Bulgarian to break for 6-4.
A fascinating second unravelled but rallies were rare as Muller adopted some old school serve and volley whilst Dimitrov just managed to maintain parity.
Into a tie-break and Dimitrov had no answer to the serves flying down towards him as Muller notched up consecutive aces, his 19th in total, to lead 5-4. The 32-year-old then astonished his opponent, striking a a fierce forehand drive down the line to reach match point.
Muller pulled the forehand trigger again at match point during a tense rally to wrong foot Dimitrov and fired himself into a maiden last eight draw at the Aegon Championships.
Muller, coached by Andy Murray’s good friend Jamie Delgado, faces the Scot in the next round having lost their previous three matches.
“I was really focused on my game. I think I gave him a lot of troubles. I was serving really good today. I felt really confident on my serve games,” said Muller.
“I feel now for the first time maybe in my career that my body is really, really fit, and I'm able to perform good tennis every week.
Meanwhile Dimitrov reflected on failing to retain the trophy: “Yeah, it's of course never easy when you lose your title, but that's part of the game. It's a tough loss for me, but I give credit to Gilles. He played a good match. Very solid serving."
“I'm going to have quite a few days to get ready for Wimby, and, yeah, I'm sure I'm going to turn things around.”
Ace battles
Feliciano came within one point of winning the Aegon Championships last summer, coming up agonisingly short in deciding tie-break against Dimitrov.
Fast forward 12 months and the Spaniard was back amongst the tense set deciders taking on the marathon match specialist John Isner.
Lopez needed three tie-breaks to defeat Isner in four sets at Wimbledon in 2014, their last meeting on grass, and today’s battle replicated the feat.
A trio of tie-break sets separated last year’s finalist and the towering Isner took the first following a looping forehand pass on the run.
It was a constant tug of war between the ace count totting up and then Lopez’s classic grass court tactics versus Isner’s power.
In the second tie-break Isner conjured up two match points. The first was a delightful scooped backhand winner from a tricky low position but having seen both pass by due to Lopez’s solid volley game, the Spaniard avoided defeat with an 11-9 breaker.
Crunching Isner groundstrokes and Lopez’s forays to the net kept cancelling each other out in the decider and yes, you guessed it, a tie-break was needed to find a winner.
Isner was the more aggressive and prevailed 7-4 having hit 36 aces along the way to victory. The combined 65 ace count was an ATP Tour record for a three sets match and as a reward Isner will now take on Viktor Troicki who stunned former champion Marin Cilic 6-7(8), 6-2, 6-3.
Stat of the day
John Isner is leading the ace count at the Aegon Championships on 57 with Gilles Muller close behind on 56 whereas Milos Raonic has also racked up 53. In comparison Andy Murray has only scored 16.
Pick of the quotes
Muller on his coach Jamie Delgado’s friendship with Murray: “At the end of the day, I mean, I'm the one standing on the court. Obviously he can give me some tips, but everyone knows Andy is a great player. I think he's back on where he was when he was winning Grand Slams.
Asked whether his new coaching set-up with Jonas Bjorkman was working seamlessly, Murray responded jokingly: “If it wasn't, I wouldn't tell you guys.”
Tweet of the day
Happy to see that the #RafaNadalAcademy is making good progress! ;) http://t.co/WVITO73DOi pic.twitter.com/rGxM5Ko2M1
— Rafa Nadal (@RafaelNadal) June 18, 2015
