Andy Murray celebrates birthday with Rome Masters victory

Andy Murray celebrated his 27th birthday with a victory at the Rome Masters 2014 tournament. Murray advanced to the quarterfinals with a 7-6, 6-4 victory over Jurgen Melzer of Austria.

Murray will have a tougher assignment ahead as he’s slated to meet two-time defending champion Rafael Nadal in the quarterfinals. Nadal advanced after defeating Mikhail Youzhny of Russia in three sets.

“I’d love to play against him,” Murray said to Sky Sports. “It’d be a great match for me with the French Open just around the corner, because I’ll see exactly where my game’s at and what I need to improve. I haven’t played him for a long time, regardless of the last time on clay. I didn’t play him at all when Ivan [Lendl] was coaching me. Both of our games will have changed in the last three years.”

Murray admitted that his third-round loss at last week’s Madrid Open was due to his inconsistent play.

“There were bits last week where I was not good at all, I was very inconsistent,” he said.

“This week I wanted to play solid tennis as much as possible. I did a pretty good job today. [Without the wind] it was a lot easier to build the points and have a specific game plan. I did a decent job. There’s some things I’d like to do better. [Clay] is a surface that takes me time to get used to the movement.”