Angry Murray beats Karlovic

Running hot: Andy Murray was pleased to beat Ivo Karlovic, but was unhappy that he lost his temper - a problem he is trying to eradicate

Andy Murray admitted he almost blew it after scraping into the last 16 at Indian Wells with a 7-6, 6-7, 6-3 victory over Croatian giant Ivo Karlovic. Although the British No1's tactics were exemplary, he lost his temper as he struggled to get the better of his 6ft 10in opponent.

"I was disappointed with my attitude during the match," Murray said. "I was getting really angry and I haven't done that this year.

"I was in a bad frame of mind and you can sometimes snap out of it, but when you're playing someone who is as frustrating to play against as him, it's difficult.

"I was just happy with the way I came through in the end because I was not focusing as well as I should have been."

The match was predictably short of rallies, but Murray's flair eventually enabled him to set up a last-16 meeting with German Tommy Haas, who beat Fernando Verdasco in three sets.

Murray, who beat Karlovic in last year's SAP Open final in San Jose, was first to concede his serve and fell behind 3-1.

But three blistering returns helped the Scot to break back in the sixth and the rest of the opening set went with serve until Murray took the tiebreak 9-7.

Karlovic raced into a 3-0 lead at the start of the second set. Again Murray broke back but this time the Croat claimed the tiebreak 7-3.

Murray is nothing if not resilient and it was his turn to lead 3-0 in the decider. Karlovic did break back in the seventh game but Murray responded immediately. Two phenomenal cross-court forehands earned the Scot a break point which he claimed at the first attempt to earn a chance to serve out the match.

There was success, too, for elder brother Jamie who reached the quarter-finals of the men's doubles after he and Belarusian partner Max Mirnyi completed a 7-6, 6-4 win over French pair Arnaud Clement and Michael Llodra.

Murray and Mirnyi, who won their first title together at Delray Beach last month, will face a re-match with top seeds Bob and Mike Bryan if the American twins defeat Jeff Coetzee and Wesley Moodie.

Russia's Nikolay Davydenko became the highest seed to go out of the singles, demolished 6-3, 6-2 by American Mardy Fish, but three-times champion Roger Federer barely broke sweat in seeing off Frenchman Nicolas Mahut in only 53 minutes.

Fish, who lost to the Russian in their only previous career meeting, will next meet twice winner Lleyton Hewitt, of Australia, who beat Russia's Mikhail Youzhny 7-5, 6-4.

World No1 Federer faces a fourth-round clash with Croat Ivan Ljubicic, who defeated Tommy Robredo, of Spain, 6-3, 6-4.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in

MORE ABOUT