World No1 Andy Murray and No2 Novak Djokovic took contrasting routes to reach the Qatar Open quarter-finals on Wednesday.
Murray laboured for two hours and 23 minutes and was on the receiving end of 38 winners from Austrian world No68 Gerald Melzer before he came through 7-6 (6), 7-5. At the net, Murray praised the 26-year-old’s game, saying: “If you keep playing like this, you’ll go higher and higher in the rankings.”
Djokovic on the other hand swept aside his opponent, Argentina’s world No71 Horacio Zeballos 6-3, 6-4 in 71 minutes to set up a quarter-final against his good friend, the 38-year-old Radek Stepanek.
After the customary handshake at the net, Zeballos picked up his bags then stopped by Djokovic’s bench on his way out of the stadium to take a selfie with the Serb.
“It was quite nice. I mean, nice surprise. I never experienced that in, let’s say, official tournament. Quite a creative idea,” Djokovic said of Zeballos’ bizarre move.
Eehhh sorryy. Creo que tengo la mejor selfie del dia jejeje. Que groso Nole.un genio!! Y yo figuretiiii.. Me encanto!! pic.twitter.com/lMXDqKdcyl
— horacio zeballos (@HoracioZeballos) January 4, 2017
“I think today’s selfie is a nice example about how one person and a player can leave whatever behind is behind. It was just minute or two after we shook hands. He was already over his lost match and he moved into doing something different. I applaud him for that. I think it was a really nice gesture.”
Murray’s kind words for Melzer after their clash was also a nice gesture but it came after almost two and a half hours of sheer battle.
Melzer, a lefty like his older tennis-playing brother Jurgen, produced some explosive shots that left Murray confounded at times.
The Austrian drew first blood but Murray broke right back before he opened up a 4-2 gap. Melzer pegged him back and the set went to a tiebreak.
An unforgiveable overhead miss saw Melzer trail 0-3 and Murray sped to a 6-2 lead with multiple opportunities to close out the set. But Melzer caught up, drawing level at 6-all with some inconceivable forehand winners and in total saved eight set points. He faltered on the ninth though as Murray finally wrapped up the opening set in one hour and 18 minutes.
The top seed broke serve in the seventh game of the second when he ran down a Melzer drop shot and responded with a backhand passing shot winner for a 4-3 lead.
Murray held at love and quickly got his hands on two match points on Melzer’s serve.
But Melzer saved both to hold serve then broke Murray as he was serving for the match to make it 5-all.
It angered Murray and the Scot quickly went up 0-40 in the next game but Melzer saved all three break points. An outrageous mis-hit from Melzer gave Murray a fourth opening and this time the world No1 converted to lead 6-5.
Serving for the match for a second time, Murray finally completed the win with a service winner on his third match point of the contest to set up a quarter-final date with Spaniard Nicolas Almagro. It was Murray’s 26th consecutive victory.
Big Four's Longest Winning Streaks@DjokerNole 43 (2010-11)@RogerFederer 41 (2006-07)@RafaelNadal 32 (2008)@Andy_Murray 26 (2016-Present)
— ATP Media Info (@ATPMediaInfo) January 4, 2017
“I thought he was excellent. He moved well. His intensity throughout the whole match was great. His level didn’t drop at all and he was really aggressive,” Murray said of the younger Melzer brother.
“As soon as you dropped the ball short or in the middle of the court he was going for it off both sides. He wasn’t afraid to come forward either. He moved forward a lot. Maybe didn’t volley as well as he would’ve liked, but he was very, very aggressive and moved well. Yeah, he’s very, very good.”
Meanwhile, Stepanek became the oldest ATP quarter-finalist since Jimmy Connors in Halle in 1995 when he beat Belgian wildcard Arthur de Greef 6-3, 6-2. He returned to the court shortly after to win his doubles quarter-final alongside Vasek Pospisil.
The 38-year-old has already played six matches in Doha, two in singles qualifying, two in singles main draw, and two in doubles.
His next opponent, Djokovic, is in awe of him.
Asked about his thoughts on Stepanek reaching the singles quarter-finals, Djokovic quickly interrupted and said: “And semi-finals of doubles. Can’t forget about that, because he’s one of not many players on tour that keeps playing singles and doubles, and especially at his age, which is an incredible effort.
“I know Radek very well. He’s one of the best friends on the tour that I have. Great guy. Very interesting guy. He keeps on surprising everybody with his level of consistency in his game.
“I think more than anything is his dedication to the sport and willingness really to kind of discover new ways to get his body in the perfect shape. I think he’s very smart when it comes down to that. He knows exactly what his body needs from every point of view.”
With his 63 64 victory over Horacio Zeballos, @DjokerNole has won 14 straight sets at #QatarTennis. He is 12-1 vs QF opponent Radek Stepanek
— ATP Media Info (@ATPMediaInfo) January 4, 2017
Stepanek is a former world No8 who is now down to No107 in the world. He turned pro over two decades ago, in 1996, and he’s happy to be chasing Connors’ various age records.
“I think I beat Jonas Bjorkman they told me, in the US Open I was the second-oldest after Jimmy Connors winning a match in a slam, so it seems like I’ll be fighting Jimmy Connors on a couple of ends to change the history a bit,” Stepanek told Sport360.
“I always say that I don’t see the finish line. The finish line comes either if my body says no more, or if I wake up in the morning and I will feel that I don’t want to go and practice and do the stuff I love to do.”
Third-seeded Tomas Berdych, fifth-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and sixth-seeded Ivo Karlovic all advanced to Thursday’s last-eight.
