Milos Raonic boasts what John McEnroe has called arguably the best serve in the history of tennis. But even that wasn’t enough to trouble unflappable Brit Andy Murray, who played his best match of this U.S. Open and rolled to a ruthlessly efficient 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 fourth-round rout last night at Arthur Ashe Stadium.
The USTA moved the Williams sisters’ doubles match to Louis Armstrong Stadium, and slid this match up to 7:30 p.m. for fear of impending rain. Unfazed, Murray made quick work of the young Canadian with a single-minded determination that must have made his stoic coach, Ivan Lendl, smile.
“We found out about five minutes after we arrived,’’ said Murray, who converted four of his dozen break points, and never faced a single break point on his own serve. “It throws you a little bit, but both of us agreed to go on at 7:30 because we heard rain was coming. Glad we got it done before it started.’’
Murray hardly looked thrown, using a lot of variety and displaying all the varied parts of his game: a stellar return, strong defense and court-covering movement, allowing Raonic 14 aces — about half his average. The Olympic champ even flashed his forehand and pulled out a couple of drop-shots. In the end, it was too much for even the 21-year-old Raonic’s booming serve to overcome.
“I just had to get him a couple of times on the return. I got lucky a couple of times, hit my passing shots,’’ said Murray. “He started serving a lot of big serves. I was just trying to react as quickly as possible. That’s all I could do. I was lucky. Sometimes they fly past you, sometimes you get a racquet on them. Tonight got a racquet on them.
“You focus on every serve, because if you let them back into it, then you can maybe not touch the ball in the service game for three or four games. I tried to stay focused for every point, and I did a good job of that.’’
The result? A berth in tomorrow’s quarterfinals against Marin Cilic, against whom Murray is 6-1, with his only loss coming here in the 2009 quarterfinals.
“Not much I could do,’’ Raonic said. “I tried everything. I tried three different ways. I tried playing back, playing high to him. I tried coming in a lot, everything really. Didn’t have solutions all the time. ‘’