Andy Murray took another step closer to becoming the first British champion at Queen's Club for more than 70 years when he beat American Mardy Fish 7-5, 6-3 to reach the semi-finals on Friday.
Andy Roddick made sure he stayed in the hunt to set up a final date with Murray. The American second seed saw a lot of aces whizby but kept his wits to eke out a 7-6 7-6 win over fellow big server Ivo Karlovic of Croatia.
Top seed Murray barely put a foot wrong in the opening set as he dropped only three points on serve and kept Fish on his toes with his crafty angles, subtle spins and thundering groundstrokes.
Fish kept pace until 5-5 but then faced three breakpoints. The world number 25 hung on for the first two but could only watch in horror as his volley clipped the net and rolled back on to his side of the court on the third.
Within minutes Murray had moved to set point but Fish had him on the run and was poised to take the Scot to deuce, only to misjudge an easy smash and hand Murray the set.
A delectable lob helped Murray to break Fish for 4-3 in the second set and the British number one eased to victory.
GOOD TEST
"I had a few really good passing shots at 5-5 (in the first set) and managed to break and when I did, I felt much better," Murray, who reached the semi-final here for the first time, said courtside.
"Mardy is a very, very good grasscourt player and tries to put a lot of pressure and I knew it would be a good test."
Next up for the world number three will be former French Open champion Juan Carlos Ferrero.
The Wimbledon committee's decision to hand the Spaniard a wildcard appeared to be justified when he reached the semis of a grasscourt event for the first time with a 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 win over Belgian Steve Darcis.
Now ranked 90th in the world, Ferrero had not dropped a set until the quarter-finals and was looking forward to his encounter with Murray.
"To play here in his country on grass, everything is difficult," the former world number one told reporters.
"But I'm feeling great, and I just want to be focussed on me and on my game, be aggressive and try to enjoy.
"I know that Andy's playing amazing... he's number three in the world, so always going to be tough to beat him."
Roddick had predicted his match against Karlovic would be like "watching paint dry for the both of us" and he was not wrong.
Karlovic fired 26 aces and Roddick's tally was just two short. With more than 12 games decided on aces alone, the players spent most of their time hitting through air as they tried to make contact with their opponent's missiles.
Despite winning the ace count, the 2.08 metre tall Karlovic came up short in both tiebreaks.
James Blake will be wanting to ensure at least one American reaches the final as he will face Roddick in the last four if he overcomes Mikhail Youzhny later on Friday.
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