#NextGenATP Coric Shocks World No. 1 Murray

#NextGenATP Croatian Borna Coric is a lucky loser in the main draw at the Mutua Madrid Open, but showed plenty of skill in shocking World No. 1 Andy Murray 6-3, 6-3 to reach the quarter-finals.

“After losing in qualies and I was booking my flight back home, this is a surprise, for sure,” said Coric. “But in the last two matches, I’ve been feeling like I was back in Marrakech and played really good today. It’s a huge win and is going to mean a lot for me because confidence plays a huge role in my tennis.”

Coric, who moved into the main draw after Richard Gasquet withdrew due to back pain, took advantage of his second chance this week by defeating Mischa Zverev and qualifier Pierre-Hugues Herbert before the win over Murray. He becomes the first lucky loser to reach the quarter-finals in Madrid’s 16-year tournament history.

“Obviously he didn’t play very good today. That was obvious. That’s when I said I’m going to make even more balls, make him play and see what happens,” said Coric. “I didn’t do anything special with my tactics. I was trying to be very boring, just stay with him and try to get some errors from him.”

Coric will next play eighth seed Dominic Thiem, who saved five match points in a thrilling 4-6, 6-4, 7-6(9) victory over Grigor Dimitrov. The Croatian won his lone FedEx ATP Head2Head meeting with Thiem this March at the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event in Miami.

The 20-year-old Croatian has been in fine form this clay-court season, winning his first ATP World Tour title last month in Marrakech by saving five match points in the final against Philipp Kohlschreiber. His run over the past month is a remarkable turnaround after he opened 2017 with a 3-7 record. 

Coric, currently No. 59 in the Emirates ATP Rankings, will move back inside the Top 50 with his run this week. He is currently second in the Emirates ATP Race to Milan, which will determine the seven players who automatically qualify for the Next Gen ATP Finals this November. The eighth spot will be decided with a wild card.

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Murray will head back to the drawing board after what he said was as a disappointing performance. The top seed hit 14 winners to 28 unforced errors and won slightly more than half of his service points (29/52). A finalist last year in Madrid (l. Djokovic), he will have even more pressure on him to defend ATP Emirates Rankings points in Rome and Roland Garros, where he won and finished runner-up last year, respectively.

Although the World No. 1 wasn’t happy with his play, he was full of praise for Coric after the match.

“He serves well and moves extremely well. He never gives matches away. He makes a lot of shots and is very consistent,” said Murray. “If you’re not on your game and he’s moving well, making a lot of balls, he can make it very tough for you.”

The World No. 1 previously expressed disappointment with his serve in Monte-Carlo and Barcelona. It appeared he had righted the ship after not facing any break points in his opening-round win this week against Marius Copil, but today’s result shows the consistency in that shot isn’t there yet.

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Murray struggled with his serve in the first set, winning just 11 per cent of his second serve points. Coric broke Murray three consecutive times and won the last three games of the set to take the early advantage.

Murray hung tough in the second set, but was unable to find good timing on his backhand wing. Frequently missing when he tried to be aggressive on that side, he was often resigned to hitting high balls or defensive slices that allowed Coric to dominate the rallies. A pair of backhand errors from the top seed handed Coric the lone break of the set at 5-3, and the Croatian comfortably held in the next game to wrap up the win in one hour and 25 minutes.