Andy Murray battles past Purcell, reaches Hall of Fame Open QFs

Newport [US], July 14 (ANI): Andy Murray recovered from a set down to advance to the quarter-finals of the Hall of Fame Open in Newport, beating Max Purcell on Wednesday.
In the 4-6, 6-2, 6-1 victory, Murray needed time to find a way through Purcell, who sliced almost all of his groundstrokes in the two-hour, 23-minute match.
The Australian’s tactics foiled his opponent early on the grass court, but after trailing behind 1-5 in the opening set, Murray found a way to attack the lack of pace as the match wore on.
“He has a very different game style to a lot of the players on Tour nowadays. He was using a lot of slice off of both sides, which is very rare. It took some time to get used to that way of playing,” Murray said post-match.
“Then once I started to find my rhythm a little bit in the middle of the second set I was able to dictate points and push him around the court a little bit more, whereas in the first set I certainly wasn’t doing that,” he added.
The second-seeded Murray advances to face Alexander Bublik in the third round, after the third seed defeated Jack Sock 6-3, 3-6, 6-2 earlier on Wednesday.
Fourth seed Maxime Cressy also moved into the next round courtesy of a 6-3, 6-4 win in an all-American clash against Mitchell Krueger. He will next face Steve Johnson, who advanced past seventh seed Jiri Vesely via walkover. (ANI)