Murray To Face Tomic In Brisbane Semis
By James Waterson
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Photo Credit: Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images
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(January 6, 2012) After struggling in the first two rounds of the Brisbane International, top-seeded Andy Murray found his game when he beat Marcos Baghdatis 6-2, 6-2 Friday.
The 24-year-old Scot won nearly 70 percent of his service points, more than half of his receiving points and he broke Baghdatis’ serve four times. It was his most effective performance of the tournament as he had to battle back from a one-set deficit against 91st-ranked Mikhail Kukushkin and 54th-ranked Gilles Muller.
"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."
Murray will face 19-year-old Australian Bernard Tomic, who reached his first ATP Tour semifinal when he overcame Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan 6-3, 7-6 (4). Tomic’s match against Murray will be his eighth against a top 10 player in his career. Last year, he scored a high-profile win against Robin Soderling at Wimbledon. His only other win came when he beat Mardy Fish in three sets in Shanghai.
"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,” Murray said.