DESPERATE MEASURES: Britain’s Andy Murray dives to make a return against Spain’s Fernando Verdasco during their men’s singles quarter-final match on day nine of the 2013 Wimbledon Championships tennis tournament at the All England Club in Wimbledon, southwest London. (AFP)
(INSET) FINE SHOW: Novak Djokovic of Serbia celebrates after defeating Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic in their men’s quarter-final tennis match at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships, in London. (Reuters)

Reuters/London


Andy Murray put the home fans through the wringer as he came back from two sets down to book a place in the Wimbledon semi-finals with an edgy 4-6 3-6 6-1 6-4 7-5 win over unseeded Spaniard Fernando Verdasco yesterday.  
Murray’s hopes of ending Britain’s 77-year wait for a men’s Wimbledon champion were on the verge of being shredded as he found himself playing catch-up while looking jaded and uncomfortable on court.  
The 54th-ranked Verdasco put pressure on Murray’s vulnerable second serve and came up with a series of rasping winners to force the US Open champion deeper behind the baseline.  
Yet with the match slipping out of his grasp, Murray muscled his way back into the encounter, taking the third and fourth sets as Verdasco’s level dropped and then grabbed a decisive break in the 11th game of the fifth.  He wrapped up the match after three hours and 27 minutes when Verdasco sent a forehand long.  
Murray, who has now reached five successive Wimbledon semi-finals, will face Jerzy Janowicz in the last four.  
Earlier, an imperious Novak Djokovic proved unstoppable and courageous Juan Martin Del Potro indomitable as both claimed straight-sets victories yesterday to set up a Wimbledon semi-final clash.
Top seed Djokovic reeled off his fifth successive three-set victory although his quarter-final against Czech seventh seed Tomas Berdych was harder than the 7-6(5) 6-4 6-3 scoreline suggested.
Untroubled so far as he targets a second Wimbledon title, the clinical Serb had to find his best tennis to subdue Berdych who beat Djokovic in their only previous grasscourt meeting.
“It was a very close match, and that’s what I expected,” Djokovic, who lost to Del Potro in an Olympic bronze-medal match at Wimbledon last year, told a news conference.
“Tomas is a very powerful player. We went toe-to-toe in the first set.”
Del Potro looked down and out after five points against Ferrer when his already-bandaged left knee crumpled as he tumbled while chasing a wide ball behind the baseline.
Grimacing in pain the six foot six eighth seed climbed up from the turf, however, and after treatment and a pain-killing tablet produced a sledgehammer-like performance to beat fourth seed David Ferrer 6-2 6-4 7-6(5).
Such was the venom in his murderous forehand that any injury concerns were put aside as he struck 22 winners on that flank alone, including a screamer on match point.
“It was the same thing as my third-round match,” said Del Potro, who first injured his knee when falling on Saturday against Grega Zemlja.
“I was very close (to pulling out) because I felt a lot of pain in the beginning of the match, it was exactly the same like I did before. I twisted my knee once again and the doctor gave me some magic pills and I could finish the match.”
Del Potro’s medical team will work overtime to patch him up for a semi-final against world No.1 Novak Djokovic tomorrow.
“I think it’s going to be dangerous if I’m not careful in the next few days,” he said.