MELBOURNE: Dressed in black and oozing menace, Andy Murray extracted sweet revenge by felling Wimbledon nemesis Grigor Dimitrov in a late-night thriller as the old guard stood firm to march into the Australian Open quarter-finals on Sunday.
Former champions Rafa Nadal and Maria Sharapova sailed into the last eight but will share the limelight with Murray’s next opponent Nick Kyrgios, a local gatecrasher who roared to a famous five-set victory over Roger Federer-slayer Andreas Seppi.
Dimitrov ended Murray’s title defence at his home Grand Slam last season and the Rod Laver Arena crackled with tension as the pair slugged out a midnight classic.
Murray won 6-4, 6-7(5-7), 6-3, 7-5 and Dimitrov destroyed his racquet in disgust after blowing a 5-2 lead in the fourth set to allow the Briton to serve for the match.
The ending was cruel for Dimitrov but well-earned for Murray, as the Scot punched a cross-court forehand into the tape on match point, with the ball dropping over to send the Bulgarian out.
“I think I got quite lucky at the end, a few net cords went my way, that was the difference really,” the Scot told reporters. “The momentum was switching both ways all the time.”
Boasting a perfect 10-0 record over Australians, Murray will battle the home crowd as well as Kyrgios when the pair clash in two days’ time.
The 19-year-old Kyrgios upset Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon, and followed up Sunday by coming back from two sets down and saved a match point to beat Seppi 5-7, 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-5), 8-6, becoming the first Australian man to reach the last eight in the national championship since Lleyton Hewitt in 2005, and the first male teenager since Federer in 2001 to reach two Grand Slam quarter-finals.
He was on a secondary court for his night match, and his first words to a crowd that had chanted and screamed like football fans: “Thanks mate. Feels so good.”
Third seed Nadal, a 14-time Grand Slam champion, was dominant after a tight first set against power-hitting South African Kevin Anderson, running out a 7-5, 6-1, 6-4 winner and will next play Czech Tomas Berdych for a place in the semi-finals.
The consistent Berdych, who made the final four last year, ended Australian Bernard Tomic’s tournament with a comfortable 6-2, 7-6 (7-3), 6-2 hit-out.
Sharapova needed scarcely more than an hour to beat US Open semi-finalist Peng Shuai.
The Russian’s 6-3, 6-0 romp set up a showdown with Canadian Eugenie Bouchard, a 6-1, 5-7, 6-2 winner over Romanian Irina-Camelia Begu, handing organisers a dream last eight clash between two of the most marketable players on tour.
Twenty-year-old Bouchard, long dubbed ‘the next Sharapova’, was overhauled by the Russian in three sets at the French Open semi-finals.
French Open finalist Simona Halep beat Yanina Wickmayer 6-4, 6-2 to set up a quarter-final against No 10 Ekaterina Makarova, who had a 6-3, 6-2 win over Julia Goerges.
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