Andy Murray produced some astonishing tennis today to turn around a one set deficit and take his Australian Open semi-final by three sets to one, beating Marin Cilic of Croatia 3-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-2.
Murray made hard work of the first set, with Cilic looking like he might repeat his US Open victory over the Scot by hitting some incredible first serves, and maintaining a 50% record with his second serve.
The game turned dramatically, however, in the second set, as Murray produced a stunning break of serve in the fourth game: having worked his way to the break point, Murray hit a Cilic lob on the turn up the line with a shot that few players in the game could even have reached.
Following this, Murray held his nerve, and his serve to level the match one set all.
In the third, Murray broke early, but immediately lost his serve despite having won to love on most of his service games since the middle part of the second set. A wobble did not materialise, however, as Murray broke again to take this set against a tiring and demoralised Cilic.
In the final set, Murray dominated, with some excellent passing shots, including one in the final game which went round the net from an extremely wide angle.
Murray’s initial cruise control followed by a major focused effort to reach the final was reminiscent of the way Roger Federer played in his quarter final: if, as many suspect, Murray is to meet Mr Federer in the final, we can expect an epic battle for the 2010 Australian Open between these two very similar, tremendously gifted players on Sunday evening in Melbourne.
