Britain’s Murray rallies past Fognini to reach men’s tennis quarterfinals

British defending champion Andy Murray struggled for a long stretch of Thursday’s match against Italy’s Fabio Fognini but found his game midway through the third set to win 61, 26, 63 and advance to the Rio Olympics tennis men’s singles quarterfinals.

The secondseeded Scotsman, the gold medal favorite after Serbian world No. 1 Novak Djokovic’s stunning firstround defeat at the hands of Argentine Juan Martin del Potro, lost nine of 11 games to drop the second set and go down 30 in the decider.

But the 2016 Wimbledon champion turned into virtual wall over the last few games to break Fognini’s serve three straight times and claim victory in two hours and seven minutes.

Murray will take on 22ndranked American Steve Johnson, a 61, 61 winner Thursday over Russia’s Evgeny Donskoy, in the quarterfinals.

Three of the top four men’s seeds advanced Thursday to the singles quarterfinals, with Spanish No. 3 seed Rafael Nadal taking out Frenchman Gilles Simon 76 (75), 63 and Japanese No. 4 seed Kei Nishikori cruising past the Slovak Republic’s Andrej Martin 62, 62.

Murray won gold at the 2012 London Olympics, defeating Djokovic and Swiss great Roger Federer in the semifinals and final, respectively, to claim what was then the biggest title of his career.

He has since won one U.S. Open and two Wimbledon titles.