Soares/Murray Edge Into Cincinnati Quarter-finals

Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares were made to work hard for a place in the Western & Southern Open quarter-finals, beating Ryan Harrison and Nicholas Monroe 6-4, 7-6(9) on Wednesday.

After failing to convert match point when serving at 6-5 (40/40), Murray and Soares were forced to save two set points in the second-set tie-break before eventually booking their place in the last eight on their fourth match point. The 2017 finalists, who recently captured their second title of the season at the Citi Open, dropped just one point behind their first serves in the first set and now own a 5-2 team record in Cincinnati.

Murray and Soares will meet fifth seeds Lukasz Kubot and Marcelo Melo or Raven Klaasen and Michael Venus for a place in the semi-finals.

Seventh-seeded Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah did not face a break point in their second-round match, defeating Ben McLachlan and Matwe Middelkoop 7-5, 6-3 in 78 minutes.

Cabal and Farah won 90 per cent of first-serve points to set a quarter-final meeting against top seeds Oliver Marach and Mate Pavic or Nikola Mektic and Alexander Peya. The Colombian duo is making its first appearance in Cincinnati since their debut in 2015, when they fell in the Round of 16 to Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan.