Andy Murray earned his place in the Miami Open quarter finals and became the first Briton to reach the milestone of 500 career wins after defeating Kevin Anderson.
The third seed needed all three sets to see off Anderson from South Africa, seeded 15, winning 6-4 3-6 6-3.
What is more, the Scot became the 46th man who has reached 500 wins since the open era began. From all of them, only nine are still having active playing careers.
Murray, 27, has completed the landmark in less than 10 years, as his professional debut was made in April 2005.
Murray told the reporters that it was “fitting” to record his 500th career win in Miami, where he spends significant amount of time training.
“I’ve been through quite a lot of pain on that court in the last few years,” he said.
“I hope I can use this as motivation to win some more and I hope today’s match wasn’t the last one.
“There’s different ways of judging the success of someone’s career, but winning 800-900 matches is something that’s happened very rarely and a difficult thing to do – so it gives you something to aim at.”
The world number one indicated a new record when considering open-era wins by a British man earlier in March, as he managed to beat Feliciano Lopez at Indian Wells to surpass Tim Henman’s victory mark of 496 wins.
In Miami, against Anderson, fighting for the last 8 in the tourney he was aggressive from the outset, and broke the serve of the South African during the first game of the match and attacking even the most challenging of shots to maintain his privilege throughout the first set.
Anderson, 28, was sluggish to start, however he recovered well to twice break serve and take 4-0 lead on the way to the second set, when Murray seemed to be fading.
The Briton managed to brake serve again early in the deciding set and with the thought of 500 wins in sight, demonstrated his best to secure victory and a place in the last 8 of a tournament that he has won two times before, in 2009 and 2013.
He is now scheduled to face world number 36 Dominic Thiem, 21, from Austria.
Kevin Anderson vs Andy Murray, 31/03/2015/ 18:50 GMT, Match Center
Miami Open: Murray reaches 500 career wins
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