Andy Murray recorded his best win since lifting the Wimbledon trophy last year to set up a blockbuster US Open quarter-final against Novak Djokovic.
Murray had not beaten a top-10 player since his emotional victory over Djokovic on Centre Court more than a year ago but played a very fine match in the New York heat to defeat ninth seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 7-5 7-5 6-4.
It maintained the Scot's impressive record of having reached at least the quarter-finals of every grand slam tournament he has played in for the past four years.
Tsonga had been having a poor season until Toronto when he beat Novak Djokovic, Murray, Grigor Dimitrov and Roger Federer back to back to lift the joint biggest title of his career.
That took him back into the top 10 and set him up perfectly for the year's final grand slam.
It was a long way back now, though, particularly given the heat and humidity the pair were playing in.
The conditions were arguably tougher than when Murray cramped so dramatically against Haase last Monday but so far there was no sign of any physical discomfort.
What was the same, however, was that Murray had a dip at the start of the third set, serving a double fault to go break point down before Tsonga powered away a return.
He had to work very hard to avoid trailing 3-0, saving two break points, and he got his reward in the next game, breaking back to love to make it 2-2.
Murray had talked in the build-up about the need to recover from any dips quickly and he was certainly doing a good job at that.
There was a far bit of ranting and raving - and some choice language - but Murray kept his focus well and played the shot of the match in the sixth game, slamming a running forehand cross-court winner off a decent Tsonga smash.
The pressure was all on the Frenchman serving to stay in the match at 4-5 and successive double faults was a dreadful way to start.
Murray nailed a backhand winner to bring up three match points and took the second when a tired-looking Tsonga placed a backhand long after two hours and 35 minutes.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article