Andy Murray will draw on the memories of the two biggest days of his career when he takes on Novak Djokovic for a place in the semi-finals of the US Open.
Today’s match will be the earliest ever meeting at a grand slam for the two former junior rivals, who were born just a week apart and rose through the ranks together.
With Murray only seeded eighth following his drop down the rankings, the danger was that he would come up against Djokovic or Roger Federer in the quarter-finals, and so it has proved.
Djokovic leads the overall head-to-head 12-8 and won their only previous match this season in Miami in straight sets.
But their last three clashes at slams all came in finals, and Murray won two of them – the five-set epic in New York in 2012 that broke his grand slam duck and then last summer’s emotional Wimbledon win.
“They obviously will help,” said Murray. “I wouldn’t say in terms of getting confidence, it’s just having that experience of playing those matches.
“They were both very long, tough matches, as well. So I know that I can last those matches against him. But anything can happen in a couple of days. I’ll just do everything properly and hope on Wednesday I play a good match.”
Murray played his best match of the season in the fourth round to beat Jo-Wilfried Tsonga – his first top-10 scalp since the Wimbledon final. He feels he is not far away from hitting top form since back surgery last September but also knows he has had worrying let-downs in big matches this season.
In the French Open semi-finals he suffered his worst ever grand slam defeat against Rafael Nadal.
That could be at least partly explained by the gruelling path he had taken to get there but at Wimbledon he looked in prime form only to surrender meekly to Grigor Dimitrov in the quarter-finals. He enjoys playing Djokovic and, barring a few of their early matches, usually plays very well against the Serbian, who has very similar strengths to Murray.
Djokovic came into the tournament with doubts over his form but has looked the most impressive player so far and is yet to drop a set.
Although Murray has not reached a final in any tournament this season, Djokovic is expecting his old rival to put up a great fight.
“We all know his quality,” said the Wimbledon champion.
“He knows how to play on centre court at the US Open where he has played some great tennis and we’ve had some great matches. I’m going to have to be playing my highest level in order to advance.
“I think he performs his best in the grand slams. He’s been on and off this year but I think in the big matches, he’s still fit. He still plays very high-quality tennis.”
