Jamie Murray and Neil Skupski battle into US Open semi-finals

Jamie Murray and Neal Skupski battled their way into the semi-finals of the US Open doubles, coming back from very brink of defeat to beat the American team of Jack Sock and Jackson Withrow.
Jamie Murray celebrates his win in the men's doubles quarter-finals. Picture: Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesJamie Murray celebrates his win in the men's doubles quarter-finals. Picture: Clive Brunskill/Getty Images
Jamie Murray celebrates his win in the men's doubles quarter-finals. Picture: Clive Brunskill/Getty Images

In front of a sparse but partisan crowd, Murray and Skupski found themselves 5-2 down in the third set, broke the Sock serve to love as the American was serving for the match at 5-3 and then clung on like limpets in the third set tiebreak to win 4-6, 6-1, 7-6.

“We’re very happy with our performance today,” Skupski said. “One of our things is to fight to the end and that’s what we did today. We were 5-2 down in the third and we thought ‘just keep battling, you never know what can happen’. If you stick around, things can happen.”

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It put Murray two matches away from yet another trophy in New York. He has won a title at the US Open every year since 2016, taking the men’s doubles that summer with Bruno Soares, and then winning the mixed doubles title in the next two years with Martina Hingis and Bethanie Mattek-Sands. Clearly, Murray enjoys life in the Big Apple.

“I love it!” he said. “I get some help from my serve. I can use the spins, get the ball moving – I know I don’t have the fastest serve but these conditions help me. I like the balls a lot and I’ve chosen some good partners!”

His partnership with Skupski is still relatively new – they got together at the start of the grass court season – but already they are forming a real understanding and as the hard court season has gone on, they have got better with every week. They reached the semi-finals in Cincinnati and Winston-Salem in the two weeks leading into the US Open.