Andy Murray cruised into the semi finals of Wimbledon 2009 with a comfortable straight sets win 7-5 6-3 6-2 against Spain’s Juan Carlos Ferrero.

Murray never played at his very best for the whole match, but when it was required he stepped up and showed the Britain that he is the man that can end drought at Wimbledon.

It took Andy Murray a little while to get going in his quarter final match against former world number 1 Juan Carlos Ferrero, but when he did he raced away with the tie. The first set went with serve until Murray claimed the crucial break in the 12th game after Ferrero double faulted.

Murray stuttered at the start of the second, dropping serve, but was soon in control again as he broke back to love and followed it up with breaking the Spaniard’s serve again to take the set 6-3.

The Murray machine was in cruise control as he began to step up the pace and the Scot powered by the former French Open winner with another two breaks of serve.

Murray will now face the winner of Hewitt v Roddick which is 1 set a piece at the moment.

The quarter final draw for the 2009 Wimbledon championships is now complete.

After the first round we only had one Brit in the draw, fortunately Murray safely negotiated the second, third and fourth round and will now face Juan Carlos Ferrero for a place in the semi finals. See the Murray v Ferrero Preview.

The fourth round saw some good matches, we lost 5th seed Del Potro in the second round, and in the fourth round we seen 2 more members of the top 8 seeds drop out.

Perhaps not the biggest upset, but the best story so far, former world number 1 and wild card Juan Carlos Ferrero defeating 8th seed Giles Simon. The other top 8 seed to go out, was Spain’s Fernado Verdasco, who was beaten in a very close 4 set match by Ivo Karlovic.

All 4 of the quarter final matches are scheduled to be completed on Wednesday 1st July with all the matches potential classics, Murray’s perhaps the most low key of all.

Former Wimbledon champion Lleyton Hewitt had to battle from 2 sets down to beat Radek Stepanek in the fourth round and he will need all his fighting spirit when he takes on big serving two time finalist Andy Roddick, in what is a repeat of the quarter final match at Queens earlier in June.

The best contest may well be the repeat of the Halle final three weeks ago between the oldest man in the draw Tommy Haas and 4th seed Novak Djokovic, Haas a veteran at 31 has found a new lease of life after years of injury woes.

Finlay Federer takes on ace supremo Ivo Karlovic in what will surely be another tie break filled match, can the king of Aces take out the King of Wimbledon.

In the eyes of people who put their money where their mouth is, Andy Murray is still the bookmakers clear second favourite behind Roger Federer – See the full list of Wimbledon 2009 Winner Odds.

Andy Murray has won his way through to the quarter final of the 2009 Wimbledon championships with a very hard fought 2-6 6-3 6-4 5-7 6-3  victory against Swiss no.2 Stanislas Wawrinka under the centre court roof.

It was the first ever full professional men’s match played under the new roof after it was closed half through ladies singles match between Dinara Safina and Amelie Mauresmo when it started to rain for the first time at the 2009 championships.

Murray’s day under the centre court roof did not start well and the Scot had to recover from a set down and break points down in the second set before he managed to get his game together to claim another famous centre court victory to rival the Gasquet match 12 months ago.

It’s the second time Andy Murray has made it through to the Quarter finals at All the England Club and will now face former world no.1 Juan Carlos Ferrero on Wednesday.

Murray lost to Rafael Nadal at last years quarter final stage and will be looking to go one round further and equal Tim Henman’s record of reaching the semi-finals at Wimbledon.

Whether it was the roof, the late start or Murray’s opponent, the Scot was clearly below his best at the start of the match. He lost the opening 3 points to give Wawrinka 3 immediate break points, the Scot did save those first 3 but not the fourth and Wawrinka had an early break. The warning bells were sounding as Murray was broken again and he found himself 4-0 down in the first set.

The Murray serve was nowhere near as good as it been in the two previous matches, but he did manage to get it semi-firing as he managed to get himself on the scoreboard eventually. It wasn’t enough to stop the Swiss player from capturing the first set 6-2.

Murray started slightly better in the second set, his serve was improving but still below par. The set went with serve quite comfortably in the first 4 games before what most people will see as the turning point, with Murray serving the Scot gives up to break points at 15-40. Wawrinka misses the first one a forehand well long, and blows the second with another forehand just missing the sideline. Murray would then go to win the game with the shot of the match so far, a dipping top-spin forehand on the run.

That save of break points by Murray was enough to inspire the Scot to raise his game and in two games time it was he who had his first chance to break, he couldn’t quite convert the first one, but he soon carved out another and this time it was converted courtesy of a backhand error for Wawrinka. Murray served out the next game to love to level the match at 1 set all.

The third set was an almost replica of the second this time Wawrinka had chances to break in the 6th game, missing all 3 of them before Murray breaks the Swiss star in the next game. Murray wouldn’t be denied his third set and the Scot served out to take the set 6-4 and a 2-1 lead in the match.

The fourth set was a bit a dog-fight as both players had numerous chances to break serve in multiple service games, but it was Wawrinka who claimed the break in the 11th game and went on to win the set 7-5.

The 5th and deciding set was looking like it would be a little more comfortable for the watching British public as Murray saved his best tennis for last , he managed to break in Wawrinka’s opening game after the Swiss ace had lead 40-0 in the game and the Scot raced to a 3-0 lead. It would not be that easy though, Wawrinka held serve and broke back to level things at 3-3.

Andy Murray though has proved time and time again he is a fighter and the Scot would not be denied his quarter final spot – He managed to hold serve and in epic game and Murray forced the break of serve after missing out on a few chances. All he had to do was hold serve and he did not disappoint.

Murray’s match will be for the 4th time the third match on centre court on Monday 29th June 2009. Robin Soderling vs Roger Federer is first up followed by Dinara Safina vs Amelie Mauresmo, which will give an approximate start time between 5pm and 6pm.

Murray has reached the 4th round on two previous occasions in 2006 he was eliminated at this stage by Marcos Baghdatis 3-6, 4-6, 6-7(2) and then last year he beat Richard Gasquet in that epic match 5-7, 3-6, 7-6(3), 6-2, 6-4.

His opponent on Monday is Stanislas Wawrinka, he’s 24 and ranked 18th in the world and seeded 19th at Wimbledon 2009. He is the Swiss no.2 behind Roger Federer and has been as high as 9th in the world, which achieved only 12 months ago. He has only one small ATP tour title in Umag in 2006, though he has made 5 ATP tour level finals and he won the Olympics double gold medal with Roger Federer in 2008.

Wawrinka and Murray are considered friends on tour and have met a total of seven times so far. Murray holds the advantage with 4-3 winning record and he has won the last two matches, most importantly the 4th round of the US Open were Murray cruised to victory over Wawrinka 6-1, 6-3, 6-3.

Their first two meeting were won by Wawrinka in 2005 and 2006 whilst Murray was still a teenager, since then Murray has lost just once to the Swiss player and that was on Clay in 2008. Warwinka’s favorite surface is clay and until last year Wimbledon when he reached the 4th round he had not really showed any kind of grass court form having lost in the first round of 6 grass court tournaments he had played.

Murray goes into the match as the strong favourite against the 19th seed Wawrinka, though this time bookmakers are giving Murray’s opponent a little more chance than they did Troicki. The best odds you will get on an Andy Murray win is 2/25 at Betfair and he is still currently the bookmakers second favorite to win Wimbledon 2009

The fourth round draw for the 2009 Wimbledon championships is now complete.

After the first round we only had one Brit in the draw, fortunately Murray safely negotiated the second and third round and will now face Stanislas Wawrinka for a place in the quarter finals. See the Wawrinka v Murray Preview.

The third round saw seeds meet seeds for the first time so the draw is now much lighter on seeds, we lost 5th seed Del Potro in the second round, but the third round did not see any upsets for the rest of the top 8 seeds and they all safely make it through to the second week.

The upsets we did see in the seed vs seed matches were 23rd seed Radek Stepanek defeated 17th seed Daivd Ferrer, 24th seed Tommy Haas took out 11th seed Marin Cilic and 22nd seed Ivo Karlovic took out 9th seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

The biggest win was from wildcard Juan Carlos Ferrero who beat 10th seed Fernando Gonzalez in 5 epic sets in the last 3rd round match completed.

All 8 4th round matches are scheduled to be completed on Monday 29th June – the stand out match is surely the rematch of the 2009 French Open final with Robin Soderling looking for that first ever win against Roger Federer.

Three unseeded players remain in the draw, former Wimbledon champion Lleyton Hewitt will fancy his chances against 23rd seed Radek Stepanek as will former world number 1 Juan Carlos Ferrero who takes on 8th seed Giles Simon, the Frenchman has looks vulnerable on the grass all week and it could well be Ferrero’s chance to make the quarter finals for the second time. Dudi Sela will have the toughest task of the non-seeds though as he faces world number 4 Novak Djokovic.

Ivo Karlovic takes on 7th seed Fernando Verdasco which could well be the closest match to call.

In the eyes of people who put their money where their mouth is, Andy Murray is currently the bookmakers clear second favourite behind Roger Federer – See the full list of Wimbledon 2009 Winner Odds.

Andy Murray strolled to yet another victory in 2009 as he successfully negotiated his way past Viktor Troicki into the 4th round and second week of Wimbledon 2009.

He dropped just 9 games in a comprehensive 6-2 6-3 6-4 win over the 30th seed Viktor Troicki from Serbia. Murray now holds a 3-0 winning record over Troicki and in his last two wins against the Serb the Scot has went on to win the title – Is Troicki Murray’s lucky charm?

Murray will next face 19th seed Stanislas Wawrinka, the Swiss number 2 behind the great Roger Federer.

The Scot produced yet another combined performance of  fantastic serving and returning. He served 65% first serves which included 17 aces and faced only 1 break point, which he saved with an ace. He did make more unforced errors than the 5 he made in his second round match, this time giving away 17.

Murray knows he is playing well, but not getting ahead of himself,

I have to give myself an A for coming through the first week,” said the 22-year-old. But I’m going to have to play better next week if I want to come away with title.

The contest was effectively over as Murray raced away with the first set with 2 service breaks in 26 minutes and then took an early break in the second. The rest of set went with serve and another early break in the third set secured the match as Murray powered home is serve to the reach the last 16 for the third time in his short career.

The third round draw for the 2009 Wimbledon championships is now complete.

After the first round we only had one Brit in the draw, fortunately Murray safely negotiated the second round and will now face Viktor Troicki for a place in the fourth round. See the Troicki v Murray Preview.

The draw is also lighter on seeds, 1 major seed is gone, Lleyton Hewitt eliminated 5th seed Del Potro on Thursday and Dudi Sela took out 19th seed Rainer Schuettler.

Friday will see the bottom half of the draw in action with Roger Federer taking on 27th seed Philipp Kohlschreiber and Novak Djokovic takes on 28th seed Mardy Fish.

Best matches of the day though should be Tommy Haas v Marin Cilic or Ivo Karlovic v Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, both these matches should highly competi|tive and could go the distance.

Murray’s half will be back on action on Saturday, matches to look out for are  Jurgen Melzer v Andy Roddick and two big clay courters Fernando Gonzalez and Juan Carlos Ferrero go head to head on the grass which could well turn out to be a very could match.

In the eyes of people who put their money where their mouth is, Andy Murray is currently the bookmakers clear second favourite behind Roger Federer – See the full list of Wimbledon 2009 Winner Odds.

For anyone who watches tennis on regular basis will know Andy Murray is the world number 3 by no fluke, he is third to only the best two players of the last 10 years and today he showed the rest of Britain why for the first time in over 70 years a British man can win Wimbledon.

Ernests Gulbis entered today’s match as a genuine threat to Murray’s chnaces on winning Wimbledon, after 15 minutes it was obvious that Gulbis was way out of Murray’s league.

The world number three “schooled”  Gulbis 6-2 7-5 6-3 in one hour and 28 minutes.

Murray faced break points in his first service game but was never troubled again on serve and made just five unforced errors in the whole match and landed 73% of his first serves as he booked a third-round meeting with Serbia’s Viktor Troicki.

After his thumping win he spoke to the media,

I played a lot better than the first match, After the first couple of games, I relaxed. I served great and didn’t give him many opportunities at all. The atmosphere was very good, I think on the big points, the crowd got right behind me and when I had break points, they got noisier. When I needed the support, it was always there.

Gulbis who remains in most tennis fans eyes as an unfulfilled talent also spoke to reporters

Andy played an unbelievable match. He served unbelievably with something like 70% of first serves in, He played really smart tennis, he sliced to my backhand a lot and I didn’t know how to change the rhythm of the game. On my serve it was always a tight game but on his serve I didn’t have a chance. Overall he made five unforced errors – if someone does that you have to hit so many winners to beat him. He didn’t miss a ball and took his chances. If he plays like that he’s one of the favourites for sure.