Berdych and Murray Steamroll Into Round Four Down Under

Tomas Berdych and Andy Murray continued their excellent starts to the Australian Open, as each rolled in straight sets to advance to the fourth round on Friday.

The sixth-seeded Murray won his third consecutive straight-set match in Melbourne, cruising past Portugal’s Joao Sousa 6-1, 6-1, 7-5 to push into the fourth-round.

Murray ripped 39 winners and had just 29 unforced errors against Sousa. He was the aggressor, winning 18 points at the net and breaking seven times to come out victorious in just over two hours.

“I thought I played well today,” said Murray. “I managed to dictate a lot of the points. I controlled the baseline very well. I hit the ball cleanly. It was a good performance.”

The Scot has looked like a player on a mission thus far at the Australian Open. He has yet to drop a set but will be tested in the fourth-round as he goes up against 10th-seeded Grigor Dimitrov.

The Bulgarian stormed back from a 1-2 set deficit to knock off the 2006 runner up Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus 4-6, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 6-3. Dimitrov committed more unforced errors than he had winners in a game that was not very cleanly played, but he notched four break points to escape with the five-set victory.

“It was a tough game for me,” said Dimitrov. “[I] didn’t really feel comfortable on the court…Matches like that really define, I think, who you are and how you want to be remembered. I just feel that [in] matches like that, it’s really important to win, even if it’s not on your best days.”

Murray leads the all-time series with Dimitrov 4-2.

Tomas Berdych won yet another straight-set match Friday, cruising past Serbia’s Viktor Troicki 6-4, 6-3, 6-4.

Troicki entered the match playing excellent tennis, including winning the title at the Sydney International last week, but ran into Berdych who was playing even better. The seventh-seeded Czech played an exceptionally clean game. He fired 20 aces and had no double-faults, and hit 55 winners to just 19 unforced errors to roll in less than two hours.

Up next for Berdych is Australian Bernard Tomic, who took down his compatriot Sam Groth 6-4, 7-6(8), 6-3 to advance. Tomic committed just eight unforced errors to move into the Melbourne round of 16 for the first time in three years.

Click here for all the results from Day Five at the Australian Open.