'Old boy' Andy Murray ready for more as grass-court streak continues in Nottingham

Andy Murray was impressive in his victory over Hugo Grenier.

‘Old boy’ Andy Murray insists he is feeling fresh and ready for more matches after making it seven wins on the trot with a second round victory at the LTA’s Rothesay Open Nottingham on Thursday night.

Murray, riding a six match win streak after his triumph at the Lexus Surbiton Trophy and an opening round victory in Nottingham, faced little trouble as he dispatched world No 127 Hugo Grenier 6-3 7-5 to set up a quarter-final meeting against eighth seed Dominic Stricker on Friday.

The two-time Wimbledon champion has dropped just one set on grass courts so far this summer and will be a hot favourite against Swiss star Stricker, a 20-year-old former junior prodigy who beat Britain’s Ryan Peniston 6-4 6-2 in the second round. And although Murray prepares for an eighth match inside two weeks, the 36-year-old is ready to push on across the weekend despite the fitness issues that have dogged him in recent years.

“I feel like I moved well there. The matches haven’t been too long, the final in Surbiton was quite a quick one and then the first round here as well, so I’m recovering well,” he said. “It’s been a lot of matches for me, and I’m an old boy now so it takes me a little bit longer to recover but I’m feeling good. I love competing obviously. At times I get frustrated but for me that’s always been part of competing. I want to do my best and when I’m not doing that I obviously get frustrated with myself, but it was a really nice atmosphere today and hopefully that will keep progressing as we go along.”

Thursday’s match against Grenier proved a different proposition for Murray than his first round win versus Joris De Loore, with the Frenchman having more grass guile. But it was nothing that fazed the two-time Wimbledon champion, who was barely threatened on serve and was able to close out the match with little fuss.

He added: “It was a very different match to the first day. He played with quite a lot of variety and he liked to come to the net, he served well. From the back of the court he didn’t have a lot of power but he used a lot of slice and angles, slowballed me a little bit. It was very different to the first match but it felt like I dealt with it quite well. I was dictating quite a lot of the rallies and in the second set I just had to hang in on his service games as he was serving extremely well, and I managed to get the break at the end.”

Elsewhere, it was a historic day for British women’s tennis in Nottingham, with there now being four British women in the quarter-final of a WTA event for the first time in history. After Heather Watson had beaten Wimbledon semi-finalist Tatjana Maria on Wednesday, Katie Boulter, Harriet Dart and Jodie Burrage all won their second round matches on Thursday to reach the last eight.

For the latest action on the British summer grass court season, check out the LTA website