Impressive Murray downs Cilic

World number three Andy Murray booked his place in the quarter-finals of the French Open with the minimum of fuss, beating 13th seed Marin Cilic 7-5 7-6(4) 6-1.
Murray looked impressive as he eased past Cilic in two hours and 31 minutes to set up a last-eight clash with Chile's Fernando Gonzalez, who earlier had dispatched Romania's Victor Hanescu 6-2 6-4 6-2.

After trading breaks in the opening games of the match, the serve was quickly the dominant factor in the first set as both players held with relative ease.

It took something special from Murray in the 11th game to break the deadlock as he set up two break points with a ferocious forehand return of serve that Cilic could only slap back long of the baseline.

The first chance went astray for Murray as the forehand mis-fired but he grabbed the break at the second attempt, when Cilic hit long, before calmly serving it out in the next game when another Cilic forehand failed to find the court.

Murray further extended his lead by breaking in just the third game of the second set when he came up with a stunning forehand passing shot at full stretch.

The Scot then looked to be easing his way through the second set but suddenly suffered a slight lapse in concentration in the eighth game allowing Cilic to break back.

Murray held further break points in both the ninth and 11th games as he looked to get back in front but Cilic managed to battle to another two service holds to force a tie-break.

Cilic got off to a bright start in the breaker, with the first four points all going with serve, but hit a cross court backhand into the net to hand Murray the mini-break at the change of ends.

The Scot then wasted little time in bringing up four set points and, although he squandered the first two, took a two sets to love lead when Cilic pushed a forehand down the line just wide.

The third set was mostly one-way traffic with Murray breaking in the second, fourth and sixth games before closing out the match.

Cilic, who required treatment on a thigh injury after a fall in the first game, did manage to get on the board by breaking in the fifth game.

But Murray quickly recovered his composure and served out the match at the second attempt when the Croat send a forehand well long of the baseline.

Gonzalez relied on his punishing forehand to race through his match with Hanescu in just 87 minutes, becoming the first player to reach the last eight at this year's championships.

The 2007 Australian Open runner-up needed only one break to bag the second as the 30th seed Hanescu, who had not lost a set before the fourth round, faded away, bowing out on the second match point on Gonzalez's 29th forehand winner.