In his third round match, Murray struggled a great deal in the heat and humidity.  This allowed Feliciano Lopez to take big swipes at the ball and hit a larger share of winners.  Murray had to resort to hitting shots up the middle of the court and to Lopez’s backhand so he could stay in the rallies and elicit errors.

With a night match, the heat and humidity was not going to be an issue.  With Raonic, Murray had a different kind of match to play.  Raonic has as big a serve as anyone in the game, up there with John Isner and Ivo Karlovic.  Fortunately, for Murray, he’s always had a pretty good record against the biggest serves of the game having never lost to Karlovic or Isner.

Initially, Raonic looked very aggressive.  Murray was having a hard time reading the serve and Raonic was able to clock his inside out forehand to great effect.  However, as the set progressed, Murray started seeing the ball better, and had a triple break opportunity and broke.

With Raonic unable to get to a break point, Murray was able to win pretty handily.  Murray sliced his returns just to get the point started since Raonic was not attempting to serve and volley.  Murray also recognized that Raonic stands far back, and as a large guy, he doesn’t move really fast, so the drop shot worked well.  Raonic struggled to keep footing and would skid a fair bit.

By the third set, Raonic was getting frustrated.  Although he tried to approach the net, Murray passed really well, a skill that he has but doesn’t get a chance to show that often.

Final score: 64 64 62.

Up next for Murray is Marin Cilic who finished the Cinderella run of Martin Klizan who upset Tsonga and Chardy in the previous two rounds.

Despite his height, Ciilc isn’t a big server like Raonic and prefers to go longer in rallies, so Murray should match up pretty well, because he should have good chances in sets to play longer points, and not be threatened with huge shots.