Murray powers into semi-finals after shaky start

The Scot will face world No 3 Nikolay Davydenko in the last four after the Russian beat Belgian Olivier Rochus 6-4, 6-3.

Murray admitted it took him a while to get into his stride. "It was a slow start for me," he said. "The conditions were better today, relatively, still it was pretty cold which is giving me some pain in my muscles, but I have to stay alert."

Murray looked out of sorts from the start and quickly found himself 3-0 down after losing his first two service games. However, the scoreline would have looked much better had the Scot taken his chance to break back immediately to make it 1-1, but at 40-30 up a complete mis-hit off the frame of his racket saw the opportunity lost.

In the third game he appeared to jar his back chasing a cross-court return at 30-all and Mirnyi took advantage. Another successful serve put the Belarussian 4-0 up and though Murray won his first service game to love his opponent continued his powerful progress to win the first set 6-2 with some strong net play.

The second set did not begin any better with Murray soon 15-40 down on serve, at which point he drove a backhand down the line, but wide to hand the opening game to Miryni. He recovered sufficiently to earn two break-points in the next, using up one of them in making it all square. Murray then held his own serve to take a 2-1 lead, which represented a turning point. He broke again and then held his own serve to ease 4-1 ahead, before Mirnyi stopped the rot by restricting Murray to just one point against his serve. But there was no stopping the British No1 as he claimed the next two games, closing out the set with a break of serve through the strength of his ground strokes.

The first three games of the final set went with serve but, after Murray had taken a 2-1 lead thanks to a love game, he then capitalised on three break-points to establish a two-game cushion.

Murray let slip the chance to finish off his opponent quickly, allowing his opponent to come back from 30-0 down against his serve to make it 4-2. He almost compounded that error at 15-40 down in the next game, but he recovered superbly to move to the brink of taking the match and completed his comeback by breaking Mirnyi for a satisfying victory.

The big-serving Croat Ivan Ljubicic overcame a spirited challenge from fifth-seeded Russian Mikhail Youzhny 2-6, 7-6, 7-6 to also move into the semi-finals. The second seed will meet sixth-seeded Robin Soderling in today's semis after the Swede upset third-seeded Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis 6-3, 6-2.

Youzhny got off to a good start, taking the first set after breaking Ljubicic in the third and fifth games. But Ljubicic came back strongly, serving 18 aces to shut out Youzhny who had his chances in both the second and third sets.

Ljubicic saved a break-point in the eighth game of the second set and the second game of the third to wrap up the match.

Soderling, ranked 25 in the world against Baghdatis' 12th, cruised past the Cypriot in straight sets. "I played an excellent match," he said.

"The conditions were much better, there was no wind today."