Murray ousts Federer again

 

Originally published on: 26/02/10 12:12

The British number one took his record against the former world number one to six wins from eight matches with a 6-7 (6/8) 6-2 6-2 victory.

He will now be favourite to beat Roddick, who overcame Rafael Nadal’s conqueror Gael Monfils 7-6 (7/1) 3-6 6-3 in the other semi-final.

Murray, who needed treatment to his back early in the final set, recovered well after losing the first set and stayed on course for back-to-back Qatar Open victories.

The match was the sixth between the pair over the last 12 months, with Murray having won four of those clashes but not the one he really wanted – the US Open final.

There is no doubt Federer does not enjoy playing the British number one and a victory over him ahead of the Australian Open would have been very welcome.

Murray recovered from 0-30 in his first service game to hold and then forced deuce on the Federer serve but could not engineer a break point. A lovely flicked backhand pass from Murray gave him a glimmer of hope in the seventh game as he took Federer to deuce for the second time.

This time he did force a break point but a strong serve from the 13-time grand slam champion snuffed out the chance.

Both players were starting to find the shots that have made their past meetings so entertaining, most recently in Abu Dhabi last week where Murray won a deciding tie-break. And a tie-break was needed to settle a very tight first set in Doha.

Federer, who was making very few unforced errors, gained an early mini-break but he relinquished that advantage with a double-fault to make it 4-4 and it was Murray who had the first set point.

Now get the WORLD’S BEST TENNIS MAGAZINE here