This morning’s doubles quarter-final in Basel was another of those matches where there weren’t too many individual highlights because the serving was good enough to produce a ton of forced errors, and it also meant that there were only a few rallies worthy of the name. One of those came in the first game, served by tall left-hander Victor Vlad Cornea, which Michael Venus won with a fabulous forehand winner down the singles sideline. That brought up a break point, and Cornea’s cross-court forehand on the next point went too wide.
Venus held to love next up, the only real highlight being a shorter rally which was won by a cross-court forehand volley from Jamie Murray. Nikola Cacic was the fourth player in the match, and he suffered the same fate as his partner in his first service game. Murray took the opening point with a fabulous cross-court forehand winner, but that was eclipsed by a wonderful forehand return down the singles sideline from Venus. The ace to Murray on the next point was the only one that Cacic won, as he and Cornea were forced into errors to give away that game as well. The next rotation of serve saw three holds to love, the only exception being when Cacic hit a nice forehand winner during Venus’ game, and those four holds left Murray serving for the set. A double fault to lose the first set point was the only blemish, with a forehand volley from Venus closing it out after 22 minutes.
Venus hit a fabulous backhand return down the tramlines when Cornea started the second set, but an ace from the Romanian completed a comfortable hold. He then hit two beautiful forehand returns off Venus, as well as a huge forehand winner in-between, and the second was the shot that broke the New Zealander’s serve. Cacic looked to be going well in the next game until Venus hit a beautiful inside-out forehand volley, and a double fault dropped the Serbian back to deuce. Murray got the deciding point back into play, and Cornea had to watch his backhand volley rebound over the baseline to give the break straight back.
Murray held to love before hitting a beautiful cross-court backhand return off Cornea, but all the remaining games went with serve. There were a couple of good rallies when Venus served next, but the only other notable shot came in the final game from Murray, where Cornea hit a beautiful forehand return down the line. The tie-break started with a great rally, which ended when Venus was forced to hit a forehand volley into the net, but there was no compulsion about his forehand into the net to end another great rally on Cacic’s first point.
The first mini-break came when Cornea lost Cacic’s second point by pushing a backhand volley over the baseline, and Murray won both his points to consolidate the lead. Venus doubled the advantage when he hit a beautiful inside-out forehand volley off Cornea. That gave his team four match points – and Cornea hit his only double fault of the night. The final score was 6-2, 7-6 (2), and the match took an hour and nine minutes. Venus and Murray get tonight off while they wait to see who their opponents will be in the semi-final in the early hours of Sunday morning.