Andy Murray beat Brandon Nakashima 7-6(5) 6-4 to achieve the final 16 of the Washington Open.
Murray had performed two doubles matches alongside Dan Evans earlier this week, which ended in defeat on Tuesday, however he was in singles motion for the first time since shedding to Stefanos Tsitsipas at Wimbledon final month.
The three-time Grand Slam champion is constructing as much as the US Open, which is reside on Sky Sports from August 28 to September 10. Next up for Murray is high seed Taylor Fritz or Zachary Svajda.
“I thought I did well. I hit the ball very well from the beginning of the match. I was struggling a bit on the return. Brandon serves well, especially on his second serve. I was struggling to create many opportunities on return,” mentioned Murray.
“I used to be just a bit bit extra stable than him at the top of the tie-break. He made a couple of errors and I bought some balls again in play.
“The court and the balls are extremely slow here, so you have to work really hard in all the games and it’s not easy to finish points. It was a good one to get through.”
It was a good contest all through and Murray seemed like he was going to go a set down when Nakashima was 5-2 up in the first set tie-break, however gained 5 consecutive factors in a key second in the match.
Murray asserted his authority by breaking at the beginning of the second set and crucially saved three break factors when 0-40 down in the fourth sport.
The remainder of the match went on serve however it wasn’t with out drama in the ultimate sport as Nakashima had a break level probability following a Murray double fault.
But, the Briton gained a superb level with a courageous drop shot forehand cross-court, which Nakashima hit into the web and held his nerve to recover from the road.
On the drop shot, Murray mentioned: “A little bit of luck in that shot but I executed it well. It was a pretty solid point up until that point.
“I had really seen in the earlier spherical that [Aleksandr] Vukic, who performed Brandon, used that shot rather a lot. I did not use it an excessive amount of right now however it labored after I wanted it at the top.”
Evans additionally progresses
Dan Evans was additionally victorious on Wednesday at the Washington Open
After his doubles efforts with Murray, Evans was additionally again in singles motion as he fought again to take victory in opposition to Frenchman Gregoire Barrere 2-6 6-0 6-3.
Evans, who performs Alexander Shevchenko in the subsequent spherical, bought the decisive break in the sixth sport of the ultimate set.
Liam Broady was unable to construct on his first-round success as he was defeated 6-4 6-2 by Tallon Griekspoor.
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