Murray Nets 500th Career Win to Reach Miami Quarterfinals

Andy Murray won the 500th match of his career on Tuesday afternoon, defeating 15th-seeded South African Kevin Anderson 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 to move into the Miami Open quarterfinals.

The win makes Murray the 46th man in the Open Era to reach the 500-win club. The two-time champion in Miami gave himself 11 break point opportunities against the big-serving Anderson, converting on four of them to outlast him in a back-and-forth three-set affair.

“I played one bad game on my serve at three-love in the second set where I started rushing a little bit, which is a shame, because I managed to get a break back and then made that second set a bit tougher for him,” said Murray. “In the third set, I created quite a lot of chances and opportunities and served better.”

Despite a dip in form in the second set, Murray rebounded in the third frame, winning 70 percent of his service points and 44 percent of his return points to move into the Miami final eight.

The Scot will meet Austrian Dominic Thiem in the quarterfinals. Thiem outlasted 28th-seeded Frenchman Adrian Mannarino 7-6(5), 4-6, 7-5 to make it through.

“He’s a very talented guy,” Murray said of Thiem. “I know him fairly well. I practice with him quite a bit. He’s very hard worker. Very good attitude. Very respectful guy. He’s got a very good career ahead of him, so I expect tomorrow will be a tough match.”

Top-seed Novak Djokovic looked as if he was on his way out when he took on Alexandr Dolgopolov of Ukraine.

Dolgopolov led the world number one 7-6(3), 4-2 and was just eight points away from pulling off the biggest win of his career. But Djokovic kicked in into another gear from there.

The Serb broke back, and broke again a couple of games after to go up 6-5. After holding serve to win the second set 7-5, Djokovic won 24 of the 27 points in the third-set to take it 6-0 shatter the Ukrainian’s upset bid with a 6-7(3), 7-5, 6-0 victory.

“I fought my way through,” said Djokovic. “I was frustrated. I was losing my composure in the first set, because I didn’t feel good. So I was just trying to find a way to come back in the match.”

Djokovic will take on David Ferrer in the quarterfinals. The seventh-seeded Spaniard survived a first-set tie-breaker before steamrolling 12th-seeded Giles Simon of France in the second set, advancing with a 7-6(5), 6-0 victory.

American John Isner followed up his victory over world number 11 Grigor Dimitrov by beating the sixth-ranked player in the world, Milos Raonic, 6-7(3), 7-6(6), 7-6(5) to reach the quarterfinals.

Isner trailed 1-4 in the second-set tie-breaker, but rallied back to claim the victory. This was a match highlighted by serves as neither player was able to score a single break point and there were 38 total aces.

The 18th-seeded Isner will look to continue his run in Miami when he takes on fourth-seeded Kei Nishikori. The world number five from Japan cruised past 19th-seeded Belgian David Goffin 6-1, 6-2 earlier in the afternoon.

The other quarterfinal on the men’s side will feature eighth-seeded Czech Tomas Berdych and unseeded Juan Monaco.

Berdych led Gael Monfils 6-3, 3-2 before the Frenchman was injured and forced to retire, while Monaco scored an upset over the 26th-seeded Fernando Verdasco, beating the Spaniard 6-3, 6-3.