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First seed Andy Murray will be hoping for another easy progression at the Australian Open when he takes on the experienced world No.50 Mischa Zverev in the fourth round. Join The Roar for live scores from around 2pm (AEDT).
The pressure on Murray to win his first Australian Open after finishing runner-up five separate times is immense after nemesis Novak Djokovic was knocked out in a shock against Denis Istomin.
A scare came in the third round for the Scot though, and not on the scoreboard. As he disposed of Andrey Rublev, his ankle seemed to tweak and Murray had to seek medical assistance at the next change of ends.
He battled through that match although clearly not at 100 per cent, taking it in straight sets as he had in the first round against Illya Marchenko.
Murray put the ankle worries to rest in the third round though, dealing with changes of direction and a heap of defence easily, putting the big-serving Sam Querrey to the sword 6-4, 6-2, 6-4.
Zverev, ranked right on the top 50 on the ATP circuit, started the season with early bomb outs in both Brisbane and Sydney, but there isn’t a heap of shame in losing to Rafael Nadal – the loss to Pablo Carreno Busta though was more worrying.
He entered the Australian Open in form that said he wasn’t going to go far, but how wrong that was. Zverev started it off with a straight-sets win over Guillermo Garcia-Lopez and in the third round did a good job to dispose of Malek Jaziri in four sets.
The match in the middle of those against John Isner though was a massive upset, one not expected by anyone. Zverev had to hang on over five sets, coming back from a pair of tie-breakers down and then winning the fifth 9-7 in a classic.
The pair have met on three occasions previously, with Murray only dropping one set. Only one of those meetings have come in the last decade though, and that was on clay in Rome so previous form isn’t an indicator here.
Whichever player wins will advance to the quarter-finals where they will meet the winner of Roger Federer vs Kei Nishikori on Tuesday.
Prediction
Murray’s defensive weapons are going to be way too much for Zverev to handle here. The world No.1 has gone past his ankle complaint and will go flying past Zverev. This could be ugly, breaking the trend of five set matches on Rod Laver Arena over the last few days.
Murray in straight sets.
Be sure to join The Roar for live scores of this match from around 2pm (AEDT) or at the completion of Mona Barthel vs Venus Williams on the Rod Laver Arena and don’t forget to add your own comments throughout the match.
Follow Scott on Twitter @sk_pryde