Murray sails through to Miami last eight; Nole and Rafa also continue smooth progress

Andy Murray breezed through to the quarter-finals of the Miami Masters with a comfortable victory over Gilles Simon.

Having saved three break points in his opening service game, a game that lasted 17 minutes, the fourth seed made easy meat of his French opponent thereafter as he booked a last-eight meeting with Serb Janko Tipsarevic.

In an encounter dominated by long rallies, the Scot managed to gradually grind Simon down and a single break in each set was enough to book a place in the final eight.

Afterwards, Murray spoke of his recent decision to withdraw from Great Britain’s upcoming Davis Cup tie with Belgium. He stated that it would be problematic for him to play the tie on a hard court, whilst the clay court season is in full swing.

Novak Djokovic overcame a potential banana-skin in Richard Gasquet by winning 7-5 6-3. However it was a patchy performance from Nole, who could only manage a first-serve percentage of 58%.

He will take on Spaniard David Ferrer in a repeat of their Australian Open quarter-final meeting, after the number five seed impressively swept past Juan Martin Del Potro 6-3 6-3.

Despite receiving treatment for a knee injury, Spain’s Rafael Nadal also made it through after a 6-4 6-4 victory over Kei Nishikori of Japan. His reward is a meeting with Jo-Wilfried Tsonga after the sixth seed easily disposed of Florian Mayer 6-3 6-2.

Mardy Fish kept the American flag flying in Miami by downing the dangerous Nicolas Almagro in three sets. Crowd favourite Andy Roddick was earlier unable to build on his win over Roger Federer, crashing out in straight sets to Frenchman Juan Monaco.

In the women’s draw, Maria Sharapova made surprisingly light work of China’s Li Na, dropping just three games.

Five-times champion at this event, Serena Williams, was heavily self-critical after she was eliminated by fourth seed Caroline Wozniacki. After losing 6-4 6-4, the American said: “I just made a tremendous amount of errors today. There’s no reason for that, I’m older and I shouldn’t do it. There’s no excuse. I’ve got to stop, it’s silly.”

Andy Murray’s match with Tipsarevic is scheduled to begin at around 8pm BST, before Tsonga takes on Nadal in the other men’s quarter-final being played today.

The two women’s last eight matches on Wednesday see Venus Williams – a wildcard in Miami – up against Agnieszka Radwanska, whilst top seed Victoria Azarenka plays Marion Bartoli.

Jamie Jubon