TENNIS:THERE IS stealth about Andy Murray's tennis that deceives all but his most perceptive antagonists. The brutish Austrian Jurgen Melzer, even as he is about to invade the world's top-10 for the first time, showed yesterday that he is transparently not among that number, and it remains to be seen if the rushing young ingènue from the Ukraine via New Jersey, Alexandr Dolgopolov, ranked 46, is up to the Scot's tricks when they meet in the quarter-finals of the Australian Open tomorrow.
Only a fool would bet so. The fifth seed Murray, surely, is destined for a semi-final date with the favourite Rafa Nadal, who eased past Marin Cilic in three sets, his recent cold apparently gone.
Beyond that lies the prize that has eluded every British player since Fred Perry was listening to Glenn Miller.
Dolgopolov, meanwhile, might be content with his first quarter-final of a slam, unless he dares to dream – and who could blame him, who would tempt him? In turning over the scary Swede Robin Soderling, seeded four, in five sets, Dolgopolov produced uninhibited tennis of the highest quality; his challenge is to do it again with expectations raised beyond any level he has experienced in his short career.
He is faced with an opponent who is playing at probably an even higher level than when he reached the final here last year.
The Murray that Dolgopolov will meet is the Murray who stretched Nadal in the semi-final of the World Tour Finals at Greenwich in November, a match regarded by many as the best contest of 2010.
Murray murdered Melzer in one hour and 44 minutes in often cathedral silence on Rod Laver Arena. It was a metaphor for his career, all glory grabbed decorously, with minimum fuss and maximum efficiency. He is yet to go two hours in five matches, yet to drop a set, and it has all been done as if he were filing his tax return.
Only when he is extended does Murray inquire of his inner strength and there were not many moments when that was necessary against an opponent so readable and, in the end, so frustrated.
Murray won going away, 6-3, 6-1, 6-1, a scoreline that barely describes his dominance.
Dolgopolov, meanwhile, produced the match of his life to embarrass the hitherto unstoppable Soderling in a match that invited wild speculation about the Ukrainian’s prospects. It would not do to get carried away with him yet; youth, as Bernard Tomic and Milos Raonic discovered here the past couple of days, will take you so far at the highest level. They will have their day.
If Dolgopolov, who hits his ground strokes harder than nearly anyone, beats Murray and goes on to meet the winner of Nadal and David Ferrer, he will truly have set this tournament alight.
Murray has not yet moved out of his groove, and might not need to do so. His tennis, defensive in the early rounds against unknown desperadoes, was nicely fine-tuned to cope with the subsequent changes in pace and style of Guillermo Garcia-Lopez and Melzer, who move in the higher echelons of the game. Dolgopolov is off to Buenos Aires after this, then Acapulco; he resides still in a different tennis world.
Nadal, who was perspiring profusely earlier in the week as he battled flu, declared his 6-2 6-4 6-3 win his best match “by far” at the tournament where he hopes to become just the third man to hold all four grand slam titles at once.
Nadal had lost his only previous encounter with Cilic, but the 15th seed never looked like repeating the upset as the world number one brutally took him apart.
“Today I felt very good, no?” he said. “I didn’t sweat like the other days. So that’s fantastic news for me. The better news is I played much better than the rest of the days.”
Women’s title favourite Kim Clijsters prevailed 7-6 6-2 in a tight night encounter against Russian lefthander Ekaterina Makarova to reach the last eight here for the first time since her return from retirement.
Clijsters completed the quarter-final line-up despite struggling early on against 49th-ranked Makarova’s forehands down the line as the evening cool turned into a night chill.
The three-time US Open champion roused herself to claim the first set tiebreak 7-3 and never again looked in danger as she cruised on to a last eight date with Pole Agnieszka Radwanska, who beat China’s unseeded Peng Shuai 7-5 3-6 7-5.
“It’s been tough,” said Clijsters, who called for the trainer after she felt her hamstring tighten in the second set.
“In these last few matches, I always played players that I kind of never played against. It was always a little bit hard to kind of find that rhythm. I definitely felt a big improvement (tonight) compared to my previous match.”
Men – Fourth round: (7) David Ferrer (Spa) bt Milos Raonic (Can) 4-6 6-2 6-3 6-4, (1) Rafael Nadal (Spa) bt (15) Marin Cilic (Cro) 6-2 6-4 6-3, (5) Andy Murray (Sco) bt (11) Jurgen Melzer (Aut) 6-3 6-1 6-1, Alexandr Dolgopolov (Ukr) bt (4) Robin Soderling (Swe) 1-6 6-3 6-1 4-6 6-2.
Women – Fourth round: (25) Petra Kvitova (Cze) bt (22) Flavia Pennetta (Ita) 3-6 6-3 6-3, (12) Agnieszka Radwanska (Pol) bt Shuai Peng (Chn) 7-5 3-6 7-5, (2) Vera Zvonareva (Rus) bt Iveta Benesova (Cze) 6-4 6-1, (3) Kim Clijsters (Bel) bt Ekaterina Makarova (Rus) 7-6 (7-3) 6-2.
