Murray swiftly beats Raonic and the rain in New York

| Wednesday September 5, 2012 00:00

The young Canadian, not usually in awe of his rivals, and who had said beforehand the result would be in his hands alone, described Murray's performance last night as 'simply amazing'.

Murray, playing at an irresistible pitch in nearly every exchange, won 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 to book a quarter-final place against Marin Cilic, whom he has beaten six times out of seven, and is in as good a frame of mind as when he beat Roger Federer at the Olympics less than a month ago. If that does not set him up to make a bit of tennis history in this United S Open at the weekend, nothing will.

They are due to meet in the semi-finals, if Murray beats Cilic and Federer beats Tomas Berdych. When is another question, as the forecast is poor - which inspired Murray to a quick-fire blitz against Raonic, himself no tortoise.

There could hardly have been a greater contrast with his struggle in the killing heat of Saturday against Feliciano Lopez when he looked out on his feet near the end of a four-set fight. In the cool of the night, with the breeze quickening in advance of showers, Murray was relaxed yet alert throughout. He has rarely played better.

'There was not much I could do,' Raonic said. 'I tried playing back, coming in a lot. He had solutions to everything. He took me out of the match. He said at the end, 'Sorry.' and I said, 'Don't be sorry, it was simply amazing, keep it up.' He was blocking returns, neutralising me really well. It was tough in there. He did things I had no answer for, something I had not really experienced before.'

Raonic came to the court like a pumped-up prizefighter, the owner of 103 aces, including the second fastest of 143 miles an hour, just a tick behind John Isner. He topped the list of outright winners, 196, and there was little doubt he did not want to hang around long against one of the best defensive players in the game.

Murray and his coach, Ivan Lendl, however had worked him out before a ball was hit. The Scot parked his opponent in the backhand corner nearly all night and, when Raonic did manage to run around his forehand, only occasionally was Murray not in the perfect position to counter it.

Raonic did bang down 14 aces, but many of them were in the early exchanges of each set, as his power dissipated in the face of Murray's astonishing consistency in defence. Significantly, Raonic did not inflict a single break point on him, a rarity in any match, but indicative of Murray's ability to snuff out his opponent's bouts of aggression.

Murray broke Raonic four times out of 12, each of them with calmness and precision. Time after time, Raonic was left exasperated, hands on knees as passing shots whizzed past him at the net, where Murray knew he would be.

The winner was gracious, as ever, afterwards. 'He was always going to come up with some big returns or come to net a couple of times,' he said, 'and get me in tough positions on my serve. But I passed really well when I needed to. I kind of made him back away from the net. I had to play extremely solid.'

The match was brought forward to the first contest of the evening to avoid the rain and Murray admitted it was a factor in determining the tempo of the exchanges. 'I was just glad I managed to get the match done before the rain came.' So, probably, was Raonic. He has not been embarrassed like this for quite a while in his young career. (Guardian)