World number three Andy Murray was better than Uzbekistan’s Denis Istomin in their fourth round match on a windy New York evening at the Arthur Ashe Stadium on Wednesday.
The Scot beat world number 65, Istomin, 6-7 (5-7), 6-1, 6-4, 6-4, despite a number of bad line calls to reach the last 8 of the US Open in three hours and seven minutes.
The 26-year-old Wimbledon champion however lost his second set at Flushing Meadows this year when he let a winning position slip in the first set, but came back to dominate play in the remaining three sets of his first night session.
“With the way he plays, he hits the ball pretty big and flat on both sides, strokes pretty low, hard at times to control. He made it very difficult for me,” Murray said.
“With the way the third set ended up going, I was just very happy to get it done because he had chances at the end of the third set to go ahead.”
Murray will face ninth seed Stansilas Wawrinka on Thursday after the Swiss upset fifth seed Tomas Berdych 3-6, 6-1, 7-6 (8-6), 6-2, at the Louis Armstrong Stadium.
