Murray gets walkover, Ward stuns Querrey

Rain affects proceedings at Queen’s.

LONDON:

Andy Murray was given a free pass into the semi-finals at Queen’s after his last-eight opponent Marin Cilic was forced to pull out with an ankle injury, while British wildcard James Ward stunned defending champion Sam Querrey.

Murray has been struggling with ankle ligament damage since the French Open but it was Cilic who was unable to recover from his own ankle injury just hours before the start of their match at the Wimbledon warm-up event in west London.

Meanwhile, world number 216 Ward won the final set of their rain-delayed third round match to clinch a shock 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory. Ward had just levelled the tie at one-set all in the gloom when play was suspended due to bad light. But the 24-year-old held his nerve overnight and piled the pressure on Querrey when play finally resumed after a 90-minute delay.

A tight deciding set swung Ward’s way when he broke the American 13th seed in the seventh game to take a 4-3 lead.

Ward, who revealed after his surprise win over Swiss fourth-seed Stanislas Wawrinka in the second round that he is trained by a former cage fighter, just had to hold serve twice to complete his latest giant-killing.

Querrey saved one match point and then had a break-point of his own but Ward kept cool to earn a second match point, which he converted to the delight of the crowd.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 11^th, 2011.