Andy Murray

Andy Murray will meet Ivo Karlovic in the semi finals of the Cincinnati Masters later today. This will be Andy Murray’s second consecutive masters semi final after losing to Rafael Nadal last week in the Rogers Cup.

Murray and Karlovic have met twice before with Murray winning on both occasions. He beat the big serving Croat 7-6(7) 6-7(3) 6-3 in the Masters Series event in Indian Wells earlier this year and in 2007 he won 6-7(3) 6-4 7-6(2) in San Jose.

With 4 of the 6 sets played between these two finishing in tie breaks, this should be a close encounter, though bookmakers still have Murray as the favorite.

The draw has been made and we are now just a few hours away from the first tennis ball being hit in anger at Wimbledon this year. We looked at the odds over the last week in the “Will Andy Murray win Wimbledon” post 1 and post 2.

But now the draw has been made we know who everyone will likely need to beat to progress all the way to the final, will Djokovic being drawn in Federer’s half affect things. Will Andy Murray drawn in Nadal’s half affect his chances or will the bookies see Ivo Karlovic winning in Nottingham a sign that we could have a complete upset at SW19.

Well Federers chances of winning are dropping with bookies, his average odds have went up from 9/10 two weeks ago to 11/10 the day before the draw and have gone up again to 12/10.

Nadal’s chances of winning on the other hand have went up in the bookies eyes, his average odds are dropping from 4/1 two weeks ago to 21/10  the day before the draw to at this moment they have dropped again to 19/10.

Djokovic continues to drop as the bookies have decided this is a new horse race, his odds dropped after losing to Nadal at Queens and have dropped even further after the draw.

Andy Murray’s odds are alos growing up to 30/1 today from initially 16/1.Despite winning Nottingham this week Ivo Karlovic has dropped back to 59/1 after rising to 49/1. It seems the bookies are not expecting anyone outside of Nadal or Federer winning this.

 If your going to try your chances then please check out betfair as they offer much better odds than traditional bookies and are currently offering a £25 free bet.

The top 4 seeds at Queen’s will compete the 4 semi final spots tomorrow after 2 very close matches, one comfortable won match and one complete walkover in the quarter finals.

The walkover as most of the UK will know by now was due to the withdrawl of Andy Murray due a thumb injury which meant Andy Roddick earned an automatic semi final place with even hitting a ball. His opponent will be Rafael Nadal who struggled through against the formidable serving of Ivo Karlovic. Nadal never managed to break the Karlovic serve all set and each of the three sets went to a tie breaker, with Nadal eventually winning losing 2 sets to 1 after losing the first breaker, the final score was 6-7(5) 7-6(5) 7-6(4).

Roddick and Nadal have met on 4 previous occasions with score standing at 2 each and this being Roddicks most surface, we should see a very close match, one that many will make Roddick favorite, despite Nadal being number 1 seed. 

The other semi final will take place between the 2nd and 4th seeds, Novak Djokovic and David Nalbandian. Djokovic cruised to victory Lleyton Hewitt 6-2 6-2, the Australian unable to capture the form he showed he on years gone past. David Nalbandian had to fight hard to win his quarter final match against fifth seed Gasquet, it needed a third set tie break to separate these two, that Nalbandian won 64 36 76(3).

Djokovic and Nalbandian have only met twice so far, and again this match should be close with each player win one of their previous meetings.

This tournament is really shaping up to be the “who is the best on grass behind Federer” - Three of the  players are all losing Wimbledon finalists, Andy Roddick and Rafael Nadal both losing twice to Federer. Djokovic in the other hand though is trying to reach is first ever grass court final and steal the crown from all them.

Andy Murray came through a tough third round match against big serving 6ft 10in Croatian Ivo Karlovic. The young Scot won in three sets 7-6 (9-7) 6-7 (3-7) 6-3 and now faces Tommy Hass in the fourth round on Wednesday.

Murray beat Hass last year in the quarter finals of the same event, but a victory against Hass will set up a likely quarter final match with world number 1 Roger Federer, who Murray beat in first round in Dubai a few weeks ago.

Murray was down a break in both of the first two sets, before breaking back and levelling to force a tie break. Murray won the first 9-7 but he let Karlovic boss the second tie break and the big Croat won it comfortably 7-3.

In the third set Murray raced to a 3-0 lead, but was pegged back before Murray again broke in the eighth game and then served out the next game to win 6-3.

At moments in the match Murray seemed furious with himself as his form was not quite up to his usual level. Though it shows his eagerness to win, getting angry with himself always seems make the situation worse and sees his form dip even further. After the match Andy Murray said,

I was disappointed with my attitude during the match, I was getting really angry and I haven’t done that this year…..I was just in a bad frame of mind and you can sometimes snap out of it, but when you’re playing someone who is as frustrating to play against as him, it’s difficult…I was just happy with the way I came through in the end because I was not focusing as well as I should have been.