Wimbledon 2011: Andy Murray Rouses Crowd with Quarterfinal Win

Tennis Now

The British crowd rejoiced when their son, Andy Murray, came out on top for his third All England Club semifinal.

The fourth seed defeated unseeded Feliciano Lopez in three sets 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 on Wednesday. The Scot hit three straight aces to win the match in two hours.

Murray hit a total of 13 aces and 40 winners with only a few errors; three double faults and 11 unforced errors to be exact. Murray was able to break the World No. 44's serve once in every set and had seven opportunities in the first two.

The World No. 4 broke in the first set, going up 4-2. At 5-3, Lopez was able to save three set points by grinding them out, but he lost the first when he hit the ball into the net.

Throughout the match, Lopez came to the net a grand total of 50 times, but was only able to convert 62 percent of the time. Murray won 100% of his 12 first serves in the first set.

Murray continued to benefit with a strong serve, and often the Spaniard was unable to win a point on his service game and never broke, despite two opportunities on the Scot's serve. In the second set, Britain’s top player broke his opponent’s service at 3-2 and won 13 of 14 first serves.

The third set was when the Murray serve started to struggle, going down to 71 percent on first serves, while Lopez held and stayed up at 82 percent. The Scot went for the break at 3-2 again with some passing shots. Murray saved two break points at 5-3 from Lopez before winning the match, to the crowd’s delight.

Murray said in the post match interview with the BBC, “I’ve played a little bit better every year.”

This marks the third quarterfinal that the Spaniard has lost on the hard courts. He had to face Lleyton Hewitt in 2005 and Marat Safin in 2008.

Amusingly enough, Murray’s mother (who is also his coach) was cheering for her son’s opponent, just as much as for her son, if not more.

Before the match, Judy Murray comically tweeted, “Wow. U can get odds of 20-1 that I'm going to wolf whistle at Deliciano during the quarter final tmrw. Whaaaaat? :).”

Murray had Pippa Middleton and Lewis Hamilton, a British Formula One car driver, in the stands cheering for him.

Andy Murray moves on to face Rafael Nadal for the third time at Wimbledon. The last time they met at the grass courts major was last year in the semifinals where the top Spaniard beat him in a close three-setter and in the 2008 quarterfinals in three sets also in favor of Nadal.  Nadal leads their head-to-head series 11-4.

Over the two weeks, HEAD invited fans to send their words of encouragement to Murray on the HEAD Facebook page.  They select the best message and put it on HEAD’s special Limited Edition White Racquet bag, that Murray has been carrying the entire tournament. 

Every round the No. 1 Brit plays during the tournament, HEAD will add more and more messages to the bag.

How many messages will he end up with?

Tennis Now