New world number two Andy Murray made tough work of his quarter final match against France’s Julien Benneteau as he continued on his way to the defence of his Cincinnati Masters title.

The sporting cliche that great players find a way to win even when they are playing badly could not be more evident in the first hour of Murray’s match today. The Scot played probably the worst set of tennis of his year so far as he dropped the first set 6-4 after being a break up.

He then found himself 2-0 down in the second set before an epic  53-shot rally saw Murray break back and go on to win 12 of the last 14 games eventually coming out 4-6 6-3 6-1.

The defending champion will now face world number 1 Roger Federer in Saturday’s semi-finals. After his win today Murray spoke to Sky Sports,

That unbelievable rally, 53 shots or something, that really changed the match for me, Physically he was struggling a little bit after that. I served terrible in the first set – six doubles. The ball was blowing all over the place. He obviously played well. It was tricky conditions. I was shanking a lot of balls at the start. I was hitting the ball really clean from the back of the court but leaving a lot of balls short so I ended up doing a lot of running, which wasn’t really the plan going into the match.

New dad Federer beat an injury struggling Lleyton Hewitt 6-3 6-4 and after his win he also spoke to Sky Sports,

I didn’t pay attention to his knee, I just thought he had not a very good day at the office. He made quite a few unusual mistakes for him. Maybe he was trying to go for more than he had to because of the knee, he was sort of obliged to.

Novak Djokovic beat Gilles Simon 6-4 7-5, with Rafael Nadal to face Tomas Berdych in the remaining quarter-final.

Andy Murray took a huge step forward in his young tennis career, answering his critics and squashing the scepticism of some negative British tennis press to record his first win at an elite masters event.

The British number one recorded an outstanding victory over the world number 3 Novak Djokovic in 2 very closely fought sets winning 7-6 (7-4) 7-6 (7-5) in two hours and 23 minutes.

It was only two months ago that many British tennis Journalists questioned whether Andy Murray could win at the top level - rather than see the potential and focus on his successes, they criticised his on court manner, his coaching choice and his autobiography.

Today he answered them in fine style. Two weeks ago Roger Federer was world number 1 and Andy Murray had never beaten Novak Djokovic and the young Serb had inflicted heavy defeats on Murray in their last 3 meetings.  Though times are a changing in the tennis world, roll on two weeks and Roger Federer’s reign at number 1 is coming to an end and Novak Djokovic has just lost twice to Andy Murray.

The scot started the match the better and looked the most likely to break first. He got carved out his first chance in game five, but was not able to convert and again in the 7th game forcing another chance, though again Djokovicclosed the door on Murray. Throughout this period Murray was holding his own serve with ease and would have been disappointed not secure the break. Not break of serve would mean a tie break was needed to separate the two - In many a similar match, the best player in the set doesn’t always win the set but this was not the case today. Murray remained ice cool, breaking immediately in the tie break and continuing is high level of service. Murray raced in a 5-1 lead at the changeover and soon wrapped up the set.

Djokovic, the current world number 3 and Australian Open champion rallied in the second set and managed to secure the first break of the match, to go up 2-1. But as we have seen Murray do on a few occasions in the last two weeks, the Scot broke back immediately. Andy turned up the heat in the eighth game securing a second break after some typical Murray scrambling that seen Djokovic eventually net an attempted smash. Murray was now serving for the match and the pressure started to toll, he played his first poor service game of the day that included two double faults and missed four match points before Djokovic broke back. On one of those match points though, a drop shot from Djokovic hit the net only to drop on Murray’s serve – the Scot missing out on victory by centimeters.

It should have been a shattering blow for the Briton at that point the bookmakers odds would have swung in favour of Djokovic, with his spirit crushed few would be surprised if Murray had went on to lose at this point.  As confidence flowed through Djokovic, Murray held his nerve and managed to force a second tie-break.

The tiebreak was as close as the whole match and the score stood at 4-4, the next point saw the Scot win an epic rally with an outstanding backhand winner. He then earned two match points after Djokovic double faulted – Murray needed both those points to win and on his sixth match point Murray secured a landmark win with a thumping volley.

The talk now will be is the big 3 now the big 4. At this very moment Andy Murray is comfortably in the top 2 players in the world. In the last two months Murray has only been beaten by one man, Rafael Nadal. Andy Murray has not suffered a loss to anyone other than the soon to be number 1 since the French Open and is now the only player other Rafael Nadal to win a main event since the Rome masters on the 5th of May.

It’s huge because to win these tournaments is tough nowadays, ‘ve played five days in these conditions and had eight or nine matches in the last couple of weeks. But I’ve put in the physical work and it’s paid off. I got very nervous and he was hitting the ball really big but I hung in well, It was tough for both of us and there were a lot of long rallies. Your legs really burn out there and they were some of the hardest conditions of the year. But I stayed calm throughout and didn’t waste any energy – especially when I went behind in a couple of matches.  In the past maybe I’d have let that get to me but now I’m playing top players on a regular basis and I’m better equipped.

Andy Murray will take on Novak Djokovic in his first ever masters event final later today in Cincinnati. This will be the second time he has met Novak Djokovic in as many weeks. The match will start around 3pm local time (8pm UK time) and will be shown live on Sky Sports.

Djokovic made the final with a commanding victory over Rafael Nadal, 6-1 7-5 in the semi finals. This ended Nadal’s run of 32 straight victories, which included two grand slam wins. Djokovic is the first player to beat Nadal since Juan Carlos Ferrero beat Nadal back in early May at the Rome masters.

Up until last week Murray had not beaten Djokovic and lost heavily in their last 3 matches, but Murray turned it around last week recording a memorable victory, winning the match 6-3 7-6 (7-3). Strangely all their matches have all been at Masters events, their first encounter was back in 2006 at the quarter finals at the Madrid masters Murray lost 1-6 7-5 6-3 and was the only set Murray had won until last week.

In 2007 followed 2 back to back semi finals in Miami and Indian wells, where Djokovic really took Murray apart, in Miami he won 6-2 6-3 before almost whitewashing Murray 6-1 6-0 in Indian wells. Then earlier this year at the Monte Carlo masters event played on clay the result was another easy win for Djokovic 6-0 6-4.

The bookmakers still see the 21 year old Djokovic, one week younger than Andy Murray, as the odds on favorite to win today. Though last week you could get as high as  9/2  on a Murray win, this week its much less and the best odds are around 9/4 mark.

Andy Murray had to once again battle back from the brink of defeat to record a second win over Carlos Moya. The Scot moved in to the Cincinnati Masters semi-finals with a fighting 2-6 6-3 6-1 victory.

After a slow start where the young Scot was broken in the opening game – Murray soon found himself a set down, a break down in the second set and facing 2 breakpoints that would put Carlos Moya 3-0 with a double break.

Murray had played terrible up to this point and on the other side of the net, Carlos Moya was hitting forehand winners for fun. Murray’s serve was sorely letting him down and so far only managed to hold to service games from 5 played and his usual strong return game was simply not happening and had yet to obtain even one break point.

Luckily for Murray, 15-40 down facing two virtual match points – he woke up. His serve began fire down with a little more pace and variation and Moya began to falter on return. Murray would save the two breaks and go on to hold this scrappy third game. This was the wake up call that Murray needed to spark him into life.

Moya held serve in the next game but Murray won the next five straight games to level the match.

He was playing too well for me and I was sluggish at the start, But I managed to turn it around with some big serving halfway through the second set … When you are playing someone like Carlos who can make you do a lot of running, you get out of breath quickly and you have to try to make the best of it, try to get some cheap points on your serve and I managed to do that in the end.

Up next for Andy will be either Ivo Karlovic or Germany’s Philipp Kohlschreiber who meet later today. This will be Andy’s second consecutive Masters Series semi finals and his fifth to date, yet he has yet to win one, this though should be his best chance, 3 of the other 4 were lost to Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal, potential final opponents if the Scot can take one more step in the right direction.

Later today, Carlos Moya will stand in the way of Andy Murray making a second straight masters semi final after the Veteran Spaniard won two matches yesterday to reach the quarter finals proving he is still able to keep up with his younger counterparts.

Moya is 32, 11 years older than Andy Murray, a former world number 1 and grand slam winner – Currently ranked 41 in the world, though will move up next week regardless of the result today.

Andy Murray will also be on his way up the rankings after this week, he will jump James Blake into 8th place who was knocked out today by Ernest Gulbis and will lose his ranking points for reaching last years final in Cincinnati.

Andy Murray though will be looking to finish the week higher than 8th and after Roger Federer losing to Ivo Karlovic today, Murray’s is the highest seed left in his half of the draw. If he can reach the final he will move up to 6th in the rankings and secure himself a very good seeding for the US open.

Moya and Murray have met once before, 2 years ago in Toronto in the Rogers Cup. Murray won the match easily 6-2 6-4 and actually went on to reach the semi finals of that masters event.

The bookmakers have Murray odds on favorite to win tomorrow and his now the third favorite to lift the title behind Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic who will meet in the semi finals if both win their quarter final matches.