Murray, Bouchard Advance Under the Arthur Ashe Lights
Andy Murray rolled into the third-round at the US Open on Thursday night, defeating Germany’s Matthias Bachinger 6-3, 6-3, 6-4 on Arthur Ashe Stadium. The Scot, who won the tournament in 2012, broke his German opponent four times and never had his serve broken on his way to the victory in one hour and 45 minutes.
Murray had to battle some tough weather conditions as the wind picked up around Flushing Meadows, much different conditions than the humidity that caused his cramps on Monday.
“Well, it was extremely windy today. That was the hardest part about the conditions,” said Murray. “But I hit the ball well considering, served better and obviously, I moved a bit better today as well.”
Next up for the Scot is Andrey Kuznetsov of Russia, who upended 31st seed Fernando Verdasco 6-3, 4-6, 4-6, 7-5, 6-3 on Thursday.
“I’ve never played him before. I don’t know his game that well but I’ve seen him play a little bit,” said Murray of his third-round opponent. “But I’ll watch a little bit of video tomorrow evening, try to understand his game a bit better.”
Eugenie Bouchard made her debut under the lights of Ashe Thursday, knocking off Sorana Cirstea 6-2, 6-7(4), 6-4 to move into the third-round. The 20-year old Canadian led 2-0 in the second set before the Romanian climbed back into the match, rattling off four straight games before eventually forcing a deciding third set.
The third set was tightly played, as Bouchard coughed up an opportunity to close out the match with a break point up 5-3. She would go down 0-30 on her own serve, but fought back to hold serve and wrap up the three-set affair.
“She started playing very solid in the second. She was getting a lot of balls back,” said Bouchard. “You know, at the end of the day it was really a fight and a battle. I definitely hope I can improve from this match.”
Bouchard now has 18 Grand Slam match wins on the year, and will look to add to that when she takes on Barbora Zahlavova-Strycova for a spot in the fourth round. Zahlavova-Strycova defeated Romanian Monica Niculescu in her second-round match Thursday.
“She mixes it up a little bit more [than Cirstea],” said Bouchard. “I’ll try to be more aggressive than I was tonight. I think that will be my main goal in my next match.”
