Andy Murray downs World No 5 to sound Wimbledon warning

ATP Tour
Andy Murray

Andy Murray progressed to the BOSS Open semi-finals in Stuttgart thanks to a straight sets victory over World No 5 Stefanos Tsitsipas.

Murray showed that he is still a force on grass with a 7-6(4), 6-3 achieved in one hour and 40 minutes.

His grass court skills proved too much for Tsitsipas to handle and he slips to 9-9 on the surface in his career to date.

Murray credited the crowd with giving him that little bit of extra energy as he powered into the last four.

“It was an amazing atmosphere,” Murray said in his on-court interview. “Almost full crowd. Beautiful weather today, really nice conditions to play tennis… I thought I did well. He served unbelievably in the first set.

“I felt like I had very few chances, but when he was creating chances on my serve, I stayed strong. I played a really solid tie-break and in the second set, once I was in the rallies, I felt like I was dictating a lot of the points. It was a good performance.”

Murray levelled the head to head series against Tsitsipas avenging his first round defeat at last season’s US Open.

The Scot saved a set point against Tsitsipas in the opener before an assured second set display closed out the win.

Murray is aiming to capture his ninth trophy on grass and will next play either Hungarian Marton Fucsovics or Australian Nick Kyrgios.

His last victory over a Top 5 opponent came against Novak Djokovic all the way back in the Nitto ATP Finals of 2016, the same year he reached his most recent grass-court singles final at Wimbledon.

The 35-year-old, who opted to miss the bulk of the clay swing to prepare for the grass-court events surges up to No 53 on the ATP’s Live Rankings and stands on the brink of a significant return.

The last time Murray was ranked inside the Top 50 was all the way back in May 2018.

Most encouraging of all for Murray is how he is playing, which suggests that he has every chance of making it into the second week at Wimbledon.

Andy Murray

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