WHEN Andy Murray began his French Open campaign here a week ago, he made a point of saying he still expected a lot from himself, regardless of his form in the previous months.
A week on and the world No.1 is into the quarter-finals at Roland Garros for the seventh time in eight years, growing in confidence and belief that he may just be able to sneak under the radar and snatch the title.
Yesterday, Murray outclassed the rising young Russian, Karen Khachanov, winning 6-3 6-4 6-4 to book a meeting with Japan’s No.8 seed Kei Nishikori.
It was, as the Scot admitted, “probably the best I have played overall”.
“Each match I feel like I played better," he said. "I have hit the ball cleaner and started to see the right shots at the right moments. I’ve come a long way the last 10 days or so.”
Mats Wilander, the former world No.1, knows a bit about French Open success, having won here three times, in 1982, 1985 and 1988.
The Swede also knows a lot about loss of motivation, something he said happened to him at the end of 1988, when he won three of the four grand slams, only to find that his desire had gone.
Murray has talked about the impact that achieving a career goal – becoming world No.1 – may have had on him as 2017 began, but Wilander believes Murray has snapped out of his funk just at the right time and may even benefit from not being talked about as a potential champion in the build-up.
“I can only talk about my own experience, but if you have come in and played below par leading into a major tournament, then you play well at the slam itself, it’s like the last two months never happened,” said Wilander, part of Eurosport’s coverage.
“In fact, it’s most possibly an advantage right now as expectations will be a little lower and he will be fresher.”
Khachanov has been tipped for big things and will enter the world’s top 40 on the back of a good week’s work here, including wins over Tomas Berdych and John Isner.
The 21-year-old has a big serve and huge groundstrokes, but Murray worked him over from the start, using the drop shot cleverly and the lob to devastating effect.
In warm but increasingly windy conditions, Murray made just one unforced error in the first set, forcing Khachanov to over-hit, while taking advantage of anything the Russian left short.
On the two occasions he did let his guard slip, he broke back immediately and his clarity of thought is exactly where he would like it to be.
“Just now I'm quite clear with what I'm doing,” said Murray, who also made a heartfelt statement on court after the match in reference to the attacks this week in London.
“That's another thing that's been positive the last couple of matches. Same thing against [Juan Martin] del Potro, when I served for the second set, broke straight back the following game and closed it out. That's been good the last few matches.”
Nishikori, who beat Murray at the same stage in the US Open last year, will pose a big threat, even if he may be somewhat fatigued after playing three days in a row, despite closing out Fernando Verdasco well to win 0-6 6-4 6-4 6-0.
Swiss Stan Wawrinka, the champion here two years ago, remains a roadblock for Murray as he tries to emulate last year’s run to the final after he beat Gael Monfils – and the French crowd – 7-5 7-6 6-2.
Simona Halep laid down a marker in the women’s event as she hammered Carla Suarez Navarro 6-1 6-1, having previously lost to her four times in a row.
She’ll play Elina Svitolina of Ukraine, who produced a miraculous recovery to beat Petra Martic of Croatia, coming from 5-2 and 30-0 down in the final set to win 4-6 6-3 7-5.
No.2 seed Karolina Pliskova will meet France’s Caroline Garcia in the remaining quarter-final.
And there was disappointment for Jamie Murray as he and Bruno Soares squandered a match point to lose 3-6 7-6 7-6 to Donald Young and Santiago Gonzalez of Mexico in the quarter-finals of the doubles.
Murray and Soares had match point at 6-3 5-4 in the second set but were made to pay as the unseeded pair grabbed the last two sets in tiebreaks, winning them 7-3 and 7-4.
“We had our chance, didn’t take it and it came back to haunt us,” Murray said.
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