After Andy Murray’s loss today, all British tennis hopes again lie with Jamie Murray, the current Wimbledon mixed doubles champion. Jamie Murray and his partner American Liezel Huber started their quarter final match on court 2 just as Andy Murray was about to lose his own quarter final match.

The 12th seeded Brit-American duo were taking on the the second seeds Canadian Daniel Nestor and Chia-Jung Chuang of Taipei. The duo made few mistakes as they reached their second grand slam semi final together after they won 6-4 7-5.

Murray and Huber have played the last three grand slams together and have had decent success, recahing the semi finals in their first event together at the 2007 US open and only losing to eventual winners at the Australian Open and Rolland Garros.

Jamie Murray will be looking to reach his second straight Wimbledon mixed doubles final after winning the title with Serbian Jelena Jankovic last year. Jankovic pulled out of the mixed doubles to concentrate on her bid for the singles title,though unfortunately for Jankovic, she lost to unseeded Tamarine Tanasugarn in the 4th round of the ladies event.

After Jelena Jankovic announced that she would not be defending her Wimbledon mixed doubles title, it was expected that Jamie Murray would team up with American (ex South African) Liezel Huber. This was confirmed today. 

Last year Jamie Murray became the first British player in over 20 years to lift a Wimbledon title when he partner Jelena Jankovic beat Jonas Björkman and Alicia Molik. Unfortunatly the Serb has opted not to defend their title in order to focus on the singles. Murray said last week

Jelena’shaving problems with her arm and will just concentrate on the singles at Wimbledon,” said Murray. “It would have been good to defend the title but it is not the end of the world. I half-expected it.

Since that win though Jamie Murray has partnered with Liezel Huber at the US open, Australian Open and last month’s French Open, so when Jankovic withdrew it was widely anticipated that Huber would be Jamie’s partner providing she hadn’t signed to play with some else.

On their first outing together at the US Open last year they made it all the way to the semi finals were they lost to India Leander Paes and American Meghann Shaughnessy in 3 close sets. In their next two grand slams together they lost to the eventual winners. At the Australian open they lost to 5th seeds Chinese Tiantian Sun CHN and Serbia’s Nenad Zimonjic in the second round and lost in the quarters to third seeds Belerus’s Victoria Azarenka and American Bob Bryan.

Liezel’s the best in the world at what she does and we played the last three Grand Slams together, In the last two Grand Slams, we lost to the guys who won the tournament and we made the semi-finals of the US Open, so we think we can do well.

Huber has just been announced on the USA Olympic team and Murray and her should make a formidable partnership and will be real contenders for this year’s title, Huber said on Murray,

He’s very laid back whereas I’m planned so it’s a good mix,” she said. “But he could crash the ball at the girls more. He’s a bit nice to them, a proper Englishman. I try to encourage him not to be nice to girls….I think we are a team that should win titles. Unfortunately, we drew strong opponents at the French Open but he’s a great player and should be a contender at all tournaments.

Jamie Murray will play with his regular partner Max Mirnyi in the men’s doubles, they will be seeded 12th and they will face French pair Fabrice Santoro and Marc Gicquel in the first round. Huber and Cara Black are the number 1 seeds in the ladies event.