Brit gains revenge for Monte Carlo Masters defeat at hands of Spaniard last week
Saturday 29 April 2017 15:41, UK
Andy Murray gained revenge over Albert Ramos-Vinolas as the world No 1 reached the semi-finals of the Barcelona Open on Friday.
Ramos-Vinolas beat the world No 1 on Murray's return from an elbow injury in the third round of the Monte Carlo Masters last week, and he looked poised for a repeat.
But Ramos-Vinolas missed a chance to serve for the match and it was Murray who came through 2-6 6-4 7-6 (7-4) in a little under three hours.
In the semi-finals he will face fourth seed Dominic Thiem, who will be looking for a third British scalp of the week after knocking out Kyle Edmund and Dan Evans.
"It was obviously a very tough match," said Murray. "It was kind of the opposite of the match we had last week, where probably today he deserved to win, he created a lot more chances, he served for the match and couldn't quite get it.
"Last week I had 4-0, I felt like I had all of the chances and sometimes on clay matches happen this way so I'm very happy to get through.
"I started coming to the net more and volleying, I felt like I started to dictate more of the points and that was a big difference."
Ramos-Vinolas is in the form of his life having risen to a career high ranking 19 and he dominated the opening stages, taking five straight games after Murray started with a comfortable hold.
The second set went with serve for the first nine games, but Ramos-Vinolas was left to rue three missed break points to serve for the match as Murray held and then immediately broke for the first time in the match to level at one set all.
The Scot, though, failed to build on that momentum as he was broken in the first game of the third set.
However, Ramos-Vinolas had to take an injury timeout for blisters when leading 2-1 and Murray pounced to break back at 2-2.
Ramos-Vinolas had the chance to serve it out when he broke again for 5-4, but nerves seemed to get the better of him as three errors handed Murray the break back.
Murray raced out to a 4-0 lead in the tie-break and saw it out as Ramos-Vinolas' efforts took their toll.
Murray will have at least one more match to work on his fitness before he heads to the key French Open warm-up events in Madrid and Rome.
The Wimbledon champion faces Thiem in Saturday's semis after the Austrian ended Japanese lucky loser Yuichi Sugita's unlikely run to the quarters 6-1 6-2.
"I knew he was in great shape after beating three great players before me," Thiem said. "My game plan was to take him out of his comfort zone. I sliced a lot and tried to play with high spin."
Rafael Nadal's quest for a 10th Barcelona title continued with a 7-6 (7-1) 6-2 win against Korean qualifier Chung Hyeon. He will face Argentine Horacio Zeballos, who beat Russia's Karen Khachanov 6-4 6-1.
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