Tennis News: Infosys Hall of Fame Open - Andy Murray beat Max Purcell

Max Purcell sliced through almost all of the groundstrokes of Andy Murray with his unorthodox tactics. The 24-year-old Australian raced to a 1-5 lead in the opening set. However, Murray fought back and clinched three straight points to make it 4-5 before Max Purcell could win the opening set. 

Andy Murray found his rhythm in the second set but still had to fight tooth and nail under hot weather conditions to seal his victory after two hours and 23 minutes of play.

The 35-year-old Brit fired eight aces, won 71% of the points on her first serve and converted seven of 15 break point opportunities he had. In contrast, Max Purcell fired five aces and won 49% of the points on first serve and four breaks off 11 chances.

In an on-court interview, Andy Murray said, "He has a very different game style to many of the players on Tour nowadays. He was using many slices off both sides, which is very rare. It took some time to get used to that way of playing. Then once I started to find my rhythm a little bit in the middle of the second set, I could dictate points and push him around the court a little bit more, whereas, in the first set, I certainly wasn't doing that.

Andy Murray will meet Alexander Bublik of Kazakhstan in a quarterfinal clash on July 15. The 25-year-old Kazak player advanced to the Last eight after a 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 victory over Jack Sock of the United States.

Fourth-seeded American Maxime Cressy defeated Mitchell Krueger 6-3, 6-4 in an all-American clash to set up a quarterfinal with another American, Steve Johnson.