Murray eases through to last four date with Roddick
MURRAYMANIA erupted to a whole new level yesterday after Andy Murray remained on course for a historic Wimbledon success by sweeping into the semi-finals for the first time.
Not since Bunny Austin in 1938 has a British man reached the final of his home event at the All England Club, but victory over American Andy Roddick on Centre Court tomorrow would see Murray, the new darling of Wimbledon, rewrite the script.
A roarcous sell-out crowd saw the Scot, 22, sweep past former French Open champion Juan Carlos Ferrero 7-5, 6-3, 6-2 and become the first Brit since Tim Henman in 2002 to reach the last four.
Murray arrived on Centre Court still feeling the fatigue of Monday night’s epic fourth round encounter with Stanislas Wawrinka which lasted until 10.45pm on Monday night.
But this, in contrast, was a walk in the park against the former world No1 as Murray waltzed to victory in just one hour 41 minutes.
Fans queued for two days for the remaining Centre Court tickets, while thousands more congregated in front of the big screen on the newly-named Murray Mount to cheer on their hero amid the blazing mid-afternoon sunshine.
Murray had met Ferrero just once before, winning their recent semi-final at Queen’s Club with relative ease, but the Spaniard looked a tough nut to crack early on.
Ferrero held serve bravely until the 11th game on the opening set when two flashing cross-court forehands were followed by the first double-fault of the game, leaving Murray in control.
Ferrero, however, hit back with a break of his own at the start of the second set, until Murray reeled off 20 of the following 21 points, including two breaks of serve to love, which earned him the second set.
There was only one winner from there on in as Murray capitalised on the tiring Spaniard by taking a third break point in game five with a thumping forehand winner to set up victory.
Standing in his way now of a second Grand Slam final is sixth seed Roddick, who came through a gruelling five-set marathon against 2002 champion Lleyton Hewitt.
Big-serving Roddick, who lost to Roger Federer in both the 2004 and 2005 finals, took the opening set only for Hewitt to take a dramatic second-set tie-break to level.
Australian Hewitt then suffered a leg injury which let Roddick run away with the third-set tie-break but then hit back to force a deciding set before Roddick came through to win 6-3, 6-7 (10-12), 7-6 (7-1), 5-7, 6-4.
MEN’S SINGLES SEMI-FINAL DRAW
Andy Roddick (USA) (6)
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Andy Murray (GBR) (3)
Tommy Haas (Ger) (24)
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Roger Federer (Swi) (2)