To see detailed h2h stats and predictions for Andy Murray vs Matteo Berrettini, see our Stevegtennis head to head prediction here.
The Arthur Ashe Stadium schedule on Friday arguably has two stars attempting one last hurrah in New York. In addition to Serena Williams, Andy Murray could legitimately be at least a semi-finalist if he can navigate the trickiest match of the draw to date. He plays Matteo Berrettini for a spot in the fourth round, with the Italian desperate for a deep run after having missed Wimbledon due to COVID.
Murray started slowly against Emilio Nava on Wednesday, but it was fairly straight forward him in the 5-7 6-3 6-1 6-0 victory after losing the first set. Experience and stamina told as the match went on with Murray going after the youngster serve far more as the match went on. “I think I started to take the ball on a little bit more,” he said post-match. “He was dictating a lot of the points in the first set. Once I started to hit the ball a little bit bigger, a little bit deeper, I was then able to control the points more.
Berrettini had to clutch up in the latter stages of his win against Hugo Grenier, having to win two tie-breaks on his way to victory. It has been a welcome return to winning ways on hard court for the 13th seed, who went winless across Canada and Cincinnati in his two matches leading into this tournament.
Murray may well be getting the luck required for a deep run with any potential fourth round and quarter final looking very winnable for him as long as he maintains his fitness. Berrettini is definitely there for the taking and he will take heart from their Stuttgart final this year, where he took the Italian to three sets on his best surface. “Physcially this is the best I’ve felt in the last few years. My movement is by far the best it has been in a long time. That’s always been a really important part of my game, and nowadays especially with a lot of the guys now hitting a huge ball, you need to be able to defend well. I feel like I’m doing that just now, I’m getting closer to where I want to be and hopefully I can have a deep run here.” Murray said.
Prediction – Andy Murray in five sets
For additional head to head predictions of Andy Murray Matteo Berrettini, you can see detailed H2H stats for Andy Murray vs Matteo Berrettini.
To see all our predictions for upcoming matches, based on our machine learning model analysing results since 1960, see our tennis predictions page here.