Andy Murray reaches his second grand slam final after a 4 set win over 14th seed Croatian Marin Cilic.

It took Murray over an hour and one phenominal point to spark the Scot into life as eventually won through 3-6 6-4 6-4 6-2.

After early chances in the first set to break the Croat’s serve , Murray seemed to waver in confidence, he was subsequently broken twice as Cilic claimed the first set. The start of second set was much the same with Murray continuing to struggle on his own serve and Cilic dominating the points.

With the score at 2-2 and Cilic serving, Murray showed signs of better play when he carved out his first break point in a while, what followed was probably the point of that tournament. Cilic fired a back hand into the  top net and it dropped on Murray’s sides of the court, Murray somehow managed to retrieve it before an exchange of volleys seen Cilic lob the Scot. Murray chased it down and  with his back to the court produced a squash style shot that flew by a gobsmacked Cilic rooted at the spot.

Andy Murray will now face either Jo Wilfred Tsonga or Roger Federer in the final, the second semi final will take place tomorrow and the final on Sunday.

In reaching his second grand slam final he becomes the first Britsh Man since John Lloyd to reach the Australian Open final in 1977 and becomes the first British man in the open era to reach two grand slam finals.

Andy Murray has just recorded his third win over Rafael Nadal and in doing so reaches his first Australian Open semi final. This will be his third career grand slam final and as for his semi final opponent Marin Cilic this will be the Croat’s first grand slam semi final, in fact Cilic is the first ever player from Croatia to reach the semi final stage at the Melbourne event.

Marin Cilic is currently the world number 14 and is also seeded 14th for this event, born in the Bosnian village of Medjugorje when it is was still part of Yugoslavia, this 21 year old now flying the flag of Croatia turned pro the same year as Andy Murray.

His progress since turning pro in 2005 until the last 6 months had not been as stellar as is other young counterparts. World number 3 Novak Djokovic, world number 5 Juan Martin Del Potro and his opponent on Thursday world number 4 Andy Murray have all been mixing at the very top of the game for a few years now.

Cilic comes into the match on a 9 match winning streak having won the tournament in Chennai, India prior to the Australian Open, it was the Croats fouth ATP title after success in New haven in 2008 and Chennai and Zagreb in 2009.

Murray and Cilic have met 4 times with Murray holding a 3-1 advantage over Cilic, though crucially perhaps the latest match was a surprise straight sets victory 7-5, 6-2, 6-2 for Cilic in the 4th round of the US Open. The shock victory against Murray who was the 2nd favorite for the title and the previous year’s finalist was seen as a major major upset and heaped heavy criticism against Murray.

Since that win though, cilic has been showing signs that, that win at the US open could well have been the begining of his rise to the top of the game, he dispatched another top 10 player Andy Roddick in the quarter finals here and out matched US open champion Juan Martin Del Potro in the 4th round.

For Murray though the semi-final against Cilic will give the Scot the perfect chance to revenge that US open defeat and reach his second career grand slam final.

Murray is favorite with the bookmakers.

It was the strangest of matches and the type of performance that we rarely if ever see from Andy Murray as the Scot was comprehensivly beaten 7-5 6-2 6-2 in the 4th round of the US Open by Marin Cilic.

Murray paid the price for a truly awfull performance that may or  may not have been hampered by an injured wrist, though he refused to blame the injury afterwards, he played with a bandage on his wrist but it did not appear to hinder hi, though Murray rarely talks publically about his weeknesses.

Murray, seeded second in this years event, did have two set points for the first set and if he had won one of them, the match could have taken a different direction, the second and third were simply “mince” though, Murray made mistake after mistakes to let the 16th seed to extend his lead.

Cilic will now play Juan Martin Del Potro in the quarter-finals, which may well be a blessing in disguise for Murray – as Del Potro would have skelped Murray if the Scot played like the way he played today – As these two will in the future be world 1 and 2, it may well be the only positive Murray can take from the match.

Not surprisingly Murray  was disappointed with defeat

Regardless of my wrist, I lost the match, I returned poorly. He served well and that was really the difference. I just couldn’t get myself into enough return games to get myself back into the match, A lot of times when I lose I get asked ‘why did you look flat?’ but it is not always the case – today I couldn’t get myself into games and he was dominating points so there wasn’t much I could do about it.

Cilic hit 35 winners compared to just 13 by Murray, who failed to convert any of seven break points. Though don’t beleive the “superb Cilic” headlines you may read, Cilic played well, well enough to beat Andy Murray – But Murray was poor today, very poor and despite what he may claim about his wrist, phychologically or physically it hurt him today – he threw away the second and thrid set and that is something we rarely see Murray do.

The usual Murray doubters will again surface claiming the Scot can’t win a grand slam, too passive, not aggressive enough and all that jazz – He’ll now have to wait till 2010 to prove them wrong.

World number 3 Andy Murray produced his best tennis of the French Open so far to sweep past 13th seed Marin Cilic with an impressive straight sets victory 7-5 7-6(7-3) 6-1.

The Scot is playing in only his third French Open and is the first Brit into the quarter-finals at Roland Garros since Tim Henman made the semi-finals in 2004.

Murray will be looking to emulate Henman in reaching the semi-finals when he takes on Fernando Gonzalez, the 12 seed from Chile on Tuesday 2nd June 2009.

Murray’s win against Cilic, the 13 seed who was yet to drop a set all tournament and had lost the least amount of games all tournament, will give the Scot great confidence that the he can progress further in Paris and chalange for the title.

Cilic had only seen his serve broken three times all tournament – Murray broke in the first game and would go on to break Cilic’s serve 6 times in total.

Murray was immeadiatly broken back after taking that initial game and the first set went with serve until 11th game, with Cilic serving at 5-5 the Croats serve broke down as Murray stepped up the pressure to secure his second break of serve. Murray would serve out the set comfortably claim the set with a big service winner.

Murray secured his third break of serve early in the second set to lead 3-1, but Cilic would once again break back to level at 4-4. Gotta stop Andy Murray story just now Rafa’s in trouble.