Andy Murray beats Milos Raonic to reach US Open quarterfinals

Still seeking his first Grand Slam title, Olympic champion Andy Murray reached the quarterfinals at an eighth consecutive major tournament by beating 15th-seeded Raonic 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 on Monday night.

Murray called it "by far, my best match of the tournament."

Raonic was equally impressed by Murray's all-encompassing performance.

"He took me out of the match," Raonic said. "Not too much I could do. He just did a lot of things too good today."

The third-seeded Murray converted 4 of 12 break points and never faced one. After weathering six aces across Raonic's first three service games, Murray only allowed eight the rest of the way.

"You start to see things after a few games. He started serving a lot of big serves. I was just trying to react as quickly as possible," Murray said in an on-court interview at Arthur Ashe Stadium. "Sometimes they fly past you, sometimes you get a racket on them _ and I got a racket on them."

Raonic's 14 aces were less than half as many as he accumulated in any of his first three matches this year at Flushing Meadows, when he hit 30, 30 and 29.

"I used a lot of variation tonight. Milos has a huge game, massive serve. I had to guess on some of the serves," Murray said. "I got lucky a few times."

Next for Murray is a match against No. 12 Marin Cilic. Murray leads their head-to-head series 6-1, but his only loss to Cilic came at Flushing Meadows in the fourth round in 2009.

"Really interesting for me. Another big challenge. Andy's obviously playing really well," Cilic said after his 7-5, 6-4, 6-0 victory over 50th-ranked Martin Klizan of Slovakia earlier Monday.

"When I feel well," Cilic added, "I feel I can match up with anybody."

... contd.

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