Andy Murray prevails over Mardy Fish to qualify for the final – Western & Southern Open 2011
World number 4 Andy Murray of Great Britain grabbed his 300th ATP World Tour level match win as he dismissed world number 7 Mardy Fish of USA in straight sets 6-3, 7-6(8) in the semi-finals at the Western and Southern
Open in Cincinnati on Saturday. The British took two hours and eighteen minutes to come out victorious from a tough match.
Murray dominated the proceedings in the first set as he broke Fish in the fourth game and held his next service game to build a 4-1 lead. The Brit maintained his lead till the end as he did not drop any of his next two service
games, serving out the set at 5-3.
The London resident gave a brilliant first serve performance as he smashed five aces and captured a whopping sixteen of the 21 first service points in the opening set. However, he failed to impress with his second serve, committing
three double faults and converting just nine of the second serves into points. In comparison, Fish gave a worse second service performance as he won just six of the sixteen points on the second serve in the first set.
Murray took the lead straightaway in the second set as he broke the American in the opening game to go up 1-0 but the Brit could not win his next service game, levelling the score at 1-1. The 24-year-old broke Fish again in the
fifth game and seventh game but failed to consolidate on them, equalising the score at 4-4. Murray and the American won their serve in the following four games to level the score at 6-6, taking the set to a tie-break. The Brit hit an overhead smash to seal
a late mini-break in the tie-break, winning it 10-8.
The right-handed said, talking to the reporters after the match, “I was struggling physically early on in the second set. That's frustrating for me, because that's something I haven't struggled with for quite a long time. I need
to get that better before the US Open. I need to get stronger; I haven’t played many matches in the past few weeks and this was the first tough one. I maybe need another one hour and 40 minutes of endurance in me before the US Open.”
The Brit added, "Mardy hadn’t been broken all tournament and I broke him three times in the second set. I served better in the tie-break.”
Murray is slated to world number 1 Novak Djokovic of Serbia in the title match.
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