Murray survives 31-minute tiebreak

Andy Murray saved seven match points to reach the semi-finals of the Dubai Championships with a marathon 6-7 (4/7), 7-6 (20/18), 6-1 win over Germany’s Philipp Kohlschreiber on Thursday. The top seed managed to avoid joining second seed Stan Wawrinka and seven-time winner Roger Federer on the sidelines after the Swiss pair crashed out in earlier rounds.

But world No 1 Murray needed to scrap and struggle for almost three hours against 33-year-old Kohlschreiber, with the pair duelling in a 31-minute secondset tiebreaker which determined the final direction of the epic quarterfinal. “It was very rewarding to come through a match like that,” Murray said.

The result ended Kohlschreiber’s quest for a 400th match win. Thursday’s dramatic second set equalled five other 20-18 tiebreaks recorded since tiebreak scores were first kept in 1991. Murray will next meet French Lucas Pouille who beat Russian qualifier Evgeny Donskoy 6-4, 5-7, 7-6 (7/2).

BOPANNA-MARCIN UP

India’s Rohan Bopanna and his Polish partner Marcin Matkowski advanced to the final of the Dubai Championships defeating compatriot Leander Paes and Spain’s Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-3, 3-6, 10-6 here on Friday. Both the pairs shared honours in the first two sets but Bopanna-Matkowski played with much more power and energy in the super tiebreaker to come out winners 10-6 and enter the final of the hard court tournament. AGENCIES