PARIS — Andy Murray found his second wind to finally get the better of Philipp Kohlschreiber of Germany, needing 40 minutes to complete a 3-6, 6-3, 6-3, 4-6, 12-10 win and reach the French Open fourth round on Sunday.
The match between Wimbledon champion Murray and the 28th-seeded Kohlschreiber was suspended because of fading light Saturday.
Additional Images
“I was cramping yesterday. My muscles were obviously fatigued,” Murray said. “I actually woke up (feeling) OK … the nice thing about this surface, compared with the hard court, is when you have a tough match on the hard courts you wake up the next day and your hips are sore, your knees are sore.”
Kohlschreiber missed a chance to break Murray in the 19th game of the decider.
“He came up with some great shots when he was behind in games today,” Murray said. “I thought both of us served a little bit better. It was a good finish to the match.”
Murray, a two-time Grand Slam champion, crouched down and clenched both fists after hitting a two-handed backhand winner on Kohlschreiber’s second serve with the score at 15-40 in the 22nd game.
Murray, the 2012 U.S. Open champion, made light of a disturbed night’s sleep of barely five hours.
“I was kind of ready to play at 4 or 5 in the morning,” he said. “When you know you have to come back and it’s 7-all the next day and every single point counts, basically you need to get off to a big start. You’re obviously going to be a bit anxious.”
He will get a longer rest before playing Monday against No. 24 Fernando Verdasco of Spain, who easily beat 12th-seeded Frenchman Richard Gasquet 6-3, 6-2, 6-3. Murray leads Verdasco 9-1 in their career head-to-heads but they have never met on clay.
In the women’s draw, Eugenie Bouchard raced into the quarterfinals by beating eighth-seeded Angelique Kerber of Germany 6-1, 6-2 in 52 minutes.
The 18th-seeded Canadian wasted no time, opening up a 5-0 lead in 16 minutes. Bouchard, who reached the Australian Open semifinals this year, next plays No. 14-seeded Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain, who beat the unseeded Ajla Tomljanovic 6-3, 6-3.
“I really believe in my skills. I believe I can play with the best girls out there,” Bouchard said. “I was really mentally prepared for anything, for a battle. I think that mindset kind of helped me.”
In the men’s fourth round, Tomas Berdych defeated 10th-seeded John Isner 6-4, 6-4, 6-4. The sixth-seeded Czech next faces either 17-time Grand Slam champion Roger Federer, seeded fourth, or No. 18 Ernests Gulbis of Latvia. They were playing their match later Sunday.
With the top three women’s seeded players out, Maria Sharapova remains the favorite to win the tournament for the second time. The seventh-seeded Russian later played Samantha Stosur.
“I think it just makes the draw really interesting when some of the top names are out and we see some new names that we haven’t seen that much,” Bouchard said.
Trailing 5-2, Kerber played with the strings of her racket as she hunched forward on her chair, her head bowed. Bouchard, by contrast, sat upright, taking a few deep breaths to compose herself before serving out the match. She clinched victory on her first match point when Kerber – a two-time Grand Slam semifinalist – made another unforced error, this time as her wild forehand sailed out.
“I make so many mistakes,” Kerber said.
The same could be said of Isner, who snapped his racket in frustration toward the end of the match.
Berdych improved to 5-2 against Isner in their career head-to-heads, and it was his third straight win against him.
Isner was the last American man in the field and was trying to be the first U.S. man to reach the French Open quarters since eight-time Grand Slam champion Andre Agassi in 2003.
“I was a little slow out there,” Isner said. “He was a lot better than me today.”
In men’s fourth-round action later Sunday, second-seeded Novak Djokovic was playing 13th-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.