Murray Finds Form To Dismiss Baghdatis; Faces Tomic In SFs

© Getty ImagesAndy Murray is through to the semi-finals on his debut in Brisbane.

After a slow start at the Brisbane International, World No. 4 Andy Murray hit his stride in Friday’s quarter-finals as he dismissed 2006 Australian Open finalist Marcos Baghdatis 6-2, 6-2 at the ATP World Tour 250 hard-court tennis tournament.

Murray had fought from a set down to win both his opening two matches on his debut in Brisbane, but was clinical against Baghdatis. He converted all four of his break point chances and won 84 per cent of points on his first serve to prevail against his doubles partner of this week in 65 minutes.

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"It was better. I started moving better from the first game of the match and that’s a huge part of my game," said Murray. "When that goes well the rest of my game improves a lot, I can dictate more of points and make it harder for my opponents to get the ball through me. That was the difference today from the first couple of matches."

The 24-year-old Murray had a career-best season in 2011, reaching the semi-finals at all four Grand Slams and going on to finish runner-up at the Australian Open (l. to Djokovic) for the second time. The Dunblane native also won five ATP World Tour titles, including the Western & Southern Financial Group Masters (d. Djokovic) in Cincinnati and the Shanghai Rolex Masters (d. Ferrer).

In the semi-finals, Murray will face eighth-seeded Australian Bernard Tomic after the Queenslander defeated Uzbekistan’s Denis Istomin 6-3, 7-6(4) in 79 minutes. Having never won a match on three previous appearances in Brisbane, World No. 42 Tomic is through to his first ATP World Tour semi-final after capitalising on his only break point chance.

The 19-year-old Tomic enjoyed a breakthrough season last year, reaching the Wimbledon quarter-finals (l. to Djokovic) as a qualifier and posting two Top 10 wins over No. 5 Robin Soderling at Wimbledon and No. 9 Mardy Fish in Shanghai.

Looking ahead to the clash Murray said, "He’s just quite unpredictable and you have to be very focused against him because he can play a couple of games where he doesn’t do much and then he can play three or four great games. So you need to be on the ball mentally against him."