Paris (AFP)
This time, the pace was too high: after a start of tournament amazing, Andy Murray still produced excellent tennis Friday in the quarterfinals of the ATP 500 tournament in Beijing against Dominic Thiem, however insufficient to destabilize the world N.5.
The Austrian won 6-2, 7-6 (7/3). Although domineering with a very high level of tennis, he was kept under pressure and was even in danger at the slightest drop in diet against the British who is slowly recovering from the installation of a hip prosthesis. left in January.
In the semifinals, Thiem will face the Russian Karen Khachanov, 9th in the world, who eliminated the whimsical Italian Fabio Fognini (12th) 3-6, 6-3, 6-1.
As he had shown in the first two rounds, including the first against the colossal N.13 world-wide Matteo Berrettini, the former world No. 1 dropped to the 503rd rank ATP found an excellent technical level, tactical and mental. The physical, it improves, but is still insufficient to chain three matches at this level.
He had not yet faced a World Top 10 player since returning to singles competition in August in Cincinnati where he was eliminated in the first round by Richard Gasquet.
Murray, 32, reached the quarter-finals in Beijing by eliminating his compatriot Cameron Norrie in the second round after nearly 3 hours of play that forced him to sleep 90 minutes before going to a press conference.
He had not played three matches on the ATP main circuit since the Shenzhen tournament in September 2018 when he lost in the quarterfinals to Spaniard Fernando Verdasco.
The Scot won his first single on the ATP circuit last week in Zhuhai since his prosthesis was laid, at the expense of American Tennys Sandgren. But he suffered physically in the second lap and lost to Australian Alex De Minaur.
The three-time Grand Slam winner (US Open 2012, Wimbledon 2013 and 2016) had mentioned in Melbourne in January a likely retirement after Wimbledon 2019 - where he played in double and mixed doubles - because of his recalcitrant hip.
But the success of his operation allowed him to return to the circuit first in doubles in June, including a win at the grass tournament Queen's, associated with the Spanish Feliciano Lopez.
© 2019 AFP