LONDON, (Reuters) – Andy Murray put the home fans through the wringer as he battled back from two sets down to book a place in the Wimbledon semi-finals with an edgy victory over unseeded Spaniard Fernando Verdasco yesterday.
The number two seed showed he is physically among the toughest players on the tour as he dug deep to drag himself back into the match, but there was also a nervous vulnerability about the way he went about securing a 4-6 3-6 6-1 6-4 7-5 win.
This was meant to be a walk in the park for Murray, who had an 8-1 winning record against the 54th-ranked Spanish claycourt specialist with limited grasscourt pedigree.
It swiftly turned into an uphill struggle as Verdasco had the U.S. Open champion on the rack, firing down bullet serves and letting rip with rasping forehand winners.
The fact that Murray kept alive his hopes of becoming the first British man to win at Wimbledon for 77 years is testament to his undoubted stamina, but he was perhaps let off the hook when a better player would have turned the screw.
