Murray Absorbs Pressure To Set Up Nadal Semi-Final

© Getty ImagesAndy Murray has reached the Wimbledon semi-finals for the second successive year.

England's football team exited the FIFA World Cup in South Africa on Sunday and the British media’s attention turned to The Championships and one player in particular, Andy Murray.

The fourth seed, who was one of two British men competing in the singles draw, advanced to the semi-finals for a second successive year with a 6-7(5),7-6(5), 6-2, 6-2 victory over French No. 10 seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who was playing only his fifth grass-court tournament.

Murray, who fell to Andy Roddick in last year's semi-finals, will be determined to continue his year-on-year improvement at The Championships, when he meets second seed and 2008 champion Rafael Nadal of Spain in the semi-finals. Nadal has a 7-3 record against his Scottish opponent, including one grass-court win in the 2007 quarter-finals.

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"I'll need to serve well and you need to play great tennis," said Murray, looking ahead to Friday's match. "There's not one way to play against him. You don't want to leave the ball in the middle of the court to his forehand, because you'll do a lot of running. But you've got to serve well and try and keep a good length."

In the opening game of the match, Tsonga got himself out of trouble, after hitting a poor volley and double fault. But it was Murray who saved two match points in the 10th game. In the tie-break the first four points went against serve, before Tsonga took a decisive 6-3 lead. He clinched the set with a superb drop volley.

Tsonga dropped to 15/40 at the start of the second set and although he saved both, Murray forced his opponent into a volley error after turning defence into attack on his third break point opportunity.

But errors cost Murray dearly at 3-1. Another tie-break was the inevitable result. Tsonga regained an early mini-break and led 5-4, before a bad misjudgment on a Murray return let the Scot serve for the set.

Five break point opportunities came and went for Murray in the third game of the third set, before a low passing shot saw Tsonga volley wide. Fired up by the capacity crowd, Murray opened up a 4-1 lead and saved one break point en route to winning the 45-minute set 6-2.

In the fourth set, Murray was denied his first match point opportunity at 5-1 when Tsonga hit a forehand winner. Minutes later Murray won his 16th match on Centre Court with a forehand winner for victory in two hours and 49 minutes. It was his 40th career win in 50 grass-court matches.

“I played a good match, but he was better than me today,” said Tsonga, smiling. “I hope he will win [the title] because he is a good player. I told him at the net, ‘Make me a pleasure; go all the way.’ It's never easy to play in front of his crowd.  He's really strong.”

The 23-year-old Murray won 19 of 22 points on approach to the net; hit 14 aces and 57 winners to keep alive his chances of become the first British man to reach the Wimbledon final since Bunny Austin in 1938.

"It's obviously been a huge, huge wait for us, and it's still obviously going on now," said Murray, when asked about Fred Perry, the last home-grown male singles champion. "I don't know how it affects the atmosphere on the court. But the crowd [would] obviously would love to see a British player win Wimbledon. 

"It's something that's kind of joked about amongst players and people within tennis about how long it's been since someone British has won at Wimbledon. It doesn't affect the way that I play. It's not something that you're thinking about when you're on the court at all."

Murray is guaranteed to remain at No. 4 in the South African Airways 2010 ATP Rankings on Monday.