mFour-time BlackRock Masters Champion John McEnroe produced a sensationalperformance at the Royal Albert Hall on Thursday to pip tournament wildcard Pat Cash to the last remaining quarter-final spot.
They both got off to a nervy start, with Cash losing his serve in the opening game of the match, the first set was a fiercely contested affair. Following a code violation for unsportsmanlike conduct and a number of hotly disputed line calls, McEnroe relinquished a 5-2 lead to be drawn level at 5all by an unrelenting Cash.
"I should have won the first set easily but I got a bad call on set point at 5-2 and then I wasted another 20 or 30 minutes because that took somethingout of me," said McEnroe.
"But I was hitting it cleaner than he was and serving a little better so I felt like I was always ahead."
After closing out a tight first set 7-5 McEnroe took firm control of the match, snatching two early breaks to race to a 4-0 lead. From that point McEnroe always looked the likely winner as Cash could do little to stem the flow of passing shots from the American¹s racket. McEnroe will now face two-time defending BlackRock Masters Tennis champion Paul Haarhuis in the quarter-finals tomorrow.
He admits it will be a toughmatch. "I'm definitely going to have to step it up. I know I'm hitting the ball well and it's do-able if I feel good, that¹s what it boils down to," he said.
