Relentless Andy Murray makes Doha semi-finals with fightback against Alexandre Muller
Andy Murray reached the semi-finals of the Qatar ExxonMobil Open in Doha after battling back from a set down to defeat qualifier Alexandre Muller.
The 35-year-old Scot recovered from a slow start against the Frenchman, racing away with the second and third sets to record at 4-6 6-1 6-1 victory in just over two hours. The world No 70 will now move on to play unseeded Czech Jiri Lehecka in Friday’s last-four tie.
It was no surprise that Murray started slowly given Wednesday’s gruelling three-set battle with Alexander Zverev, as well as his final-set tie-break triumph over Lorenzo Sonego in the opening round. Despite breaking Muller – ranked 170 – in his opening service game, Murray was erratic and coughed up the next four games to trail in the set. Despite battling hard, Murray was unable to break down the 26-year-old and lost the opener 6-4.
However, Murray did not panic and shrugged off the poor beginning, striking the ball cleanly and being more aggressive, particularly on his backhand, to race away with the second set 6-1. He gave the same treatment to the third set, finding extra gears and energy to overpower and outclass Muller.
"I had to start going for my shots a lot more,” said Murray. “I wasn’t doing enough with the ball in the first set. He was dictating a lot of the points and made me do a lot of running. I’d played a lot of tennis over the past few days and that wasn’t going to give me the best chance of winning the match, so I stepped up. I created more chances, tried to come to the net when I got the opportunity and managed to turn it around.”
Murray will now meet Lehecka, the world No 52, for the first time on Friday afternoon. The talented 21-year-old defeated top seed Andrey Rublev in three sets and has started the season very well, reaching the quarter-finals at the Australian Open earlier this year. "He’s one of the best young players on the tour,” added Murray. “He hits a huge ball from the back of the court. It’ll be a big test for me.”
The other semi-final will be between the winners of Daniil Medvedev vs Chris O’Connell and Alejandro Davidovich Fokina v Felix Auger-Aliassime.