Andy Murray powers into last 16 of the US Open after surviving storm from Italian Paolo Lorenzi

A STORM is coming and Andy Murray was in danger until Paolo Lorenzi blew himself out.

New Yorkers will hope that Hurricane Hermine runs out of steam by the time she is due to arrive in the city, just as Lorenzi did after putting the wind up Murray.

Because what was supposed to be plain sailing into the last 16 for the British No 1 turned into a choppy ride.

Asked how he navigated the tricky passage to the fourth round, Murray said: “I stopped rushing in the rallies.

“I was making quite a few unforced errors. He doesn’t give you many cheap points and I was trying to get cheap points.

“When I slowed things down and started waiting for the right moment, the errors went down, the winners went up and the scoreboard started working in my favour.”

The fact Murray dropped his first set of the tournament to the world No 40 was no big deal in itself.

But the British No1’s flat, flawed performance against the 34-year-old journeyman rang a few alarm bells.

Murray served poorly for the second match in a row and committed a worrying number of unforced errors.

He will need to find new gears if he is to achieve the amazing personal landmark of reaching all four Grand Slam finals in one year.

But this 7-6 5-7 6-2 victory at least created a little bit of national history.

Regardless of Dan Evans’ result against Stan Wawrinka, Britain already had three players – Murray, Kyle Edmund and Jo Konta – through to the last 16 of the singles at a Grand Slam for the first time since the 1985 Australian Open.

Lorenzi had less than 40 hours to recover from his marathon victory over No 30 seed Gilles Simon, but he was happy to grind it out from the baseline and Murray was the more sluggish player right from the start.

The Brit had to break Lorenzi when the Italian served for the first set at 5-4 and then took the tiebreak 7-4.

Murray came from a break down in the second, winning the longest rally of the tournament – a 42-shot mini-epic – in the process. Then he lost his serve again to allow his opponent to level the match.

But the Brit broke Lorenzi at the start of the third and this time retained and then extended the advantage as the Italian finally began to tire and make mistakes.

Lorenzi kept fighting even after losing serve at the start of the fourth set.

But after three hours and 16 minutes he left Murray seasick, yet still docked in the last 16.