Andy Murray has revealed that new coach Ivan Lendl has encouraged him to be more aggressive in his game, which will make for an interesting quarter-final as he prepares for a ‘stronger’ Kei Nishikori (Murray 1/16, Nishikori 7/1 in the match betting).

The British number one has now joined forces with Lendl to boost his chances of landing a Grand Slam title, and the Czech-born coach has advised him to become more of the aggressor when he plays.

“I think the thing that has changed has been my court positioning,” Murray told Eurosport.

“I haven’t really changed the way I’m hitting the ball, I’m not hitting it much harder or serving much bigger.

“I’m just playing closer to the baseline, which means I can dictate more points and take time away from my opponent.

“By playing a metre closer to the baseline, your ball does a lot more damage down the other end.”

Murray barely broke sweat in his fourth-round win over Mikhail Kukushkin, who retired at 6-1 6-1 1-0 down, and should be full of confidence going into his last-eight clash having beaten Nishikori 6-0 6-3 in the Shanghai Masters semi-finals last year.

However, Murray (5/6 in the handicap betting -8.5) is expecting a much tougher battle against the Japanese 22-year-old as he has worked on adding power to his game, which he demonstrated in his surprise five-set win over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

“Kei is playing really, really well. He’s very good, very deceptive. For somebody who is not the tallest, he creates a lot of power,” Murray said.

“He was dictating all the points from the back of the court against Tsonga.”