Murray and Nadal cruise in Monte Carlo as sluggish Djokovic survives scare
World number 2, Andy Murray beat Edouard Roger-Vasselin of France 6-1 6-4 to set up a mouth-watering clash against Stanislas Wawrinka.
“He has played some great tennis this year and when his game is on he’s a tough player to beat,” said Murray on Swiss number 2. “He likes this surface and I have lost to him on it in the past.”
In fact, Murray has lost his last two meetings with Wawrinka but the Brit had a good warm up to his third round match with a dominating performance against the Frenchman ranked 81 in the world.
Murray produced 8 aces, converted 4 out of 6 break points and took advantage of Vasselin’s slow start by winning 90% of his service points.
The top seed, Novak Djokovic had to battle through from a set down against Mickhael Youzhny of Russia to book his place in the last 16. Djokovic was only confirmed fit to play on Tuesday having rolled his ankle during Davis Cup match 10 days earlier.
Djokovic looked down and out as Youzhny displayed ruthless tennis to cruise to 4-0 lead over the six-times Grand Slam Champion. The Serb recovered to 3-4 in the first set but couldn’t prevent his opponents from taking the opener.
Djokovic regrouped and showed his champion spirit to close out the match with 4-6 6-1 6-4 result. “I am happy to win, I am just happy to compete, to be honest I didn’t know if I’m going to be playing the tournament,” said Djokovic.
Meanwhile, tournament favourite and 8 time consecutive winner Nadal cruised past Marinko Matosevic with a straight sets win.
The only time during the match the defending champion looked to be in trouble was at the early stages of the second set when he had to save break points to prevent himself from trailing 0-3.
Nadal’s next opponent will be Philipp Kohlschreiber of Germany whilst Novak Djokovic will take on Juan Monaco of Argentina on the central court.
Umida Ibrahimova, sports correspondent
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