Murray is forced to dig deep to edge into semi-finals
ANDY Murray battled through to his first semi-final in almost two and a half years at the European Open in Antwerp.
The 32-year-old Scot was forced to dig deep against Romanian qualifier Marius Copil, eventually wrapping up a 6-3 6-7 (7) 6-4 victory in two hours and 36 minutes.
The metal hip passed another stern examination, Copil throwing in plenty of drop shots to test Murray’s range of movement in another encouraging step on the road back towards challenging at the highest level.
Three breaks of the booming Copil serve — with one drop of his own — saw Murray wrap up the first set in 44 minutes.
But the dogged Copil, already a break down and seemingly heading for the exit facing further break points, fended them off and hauled himself level at 5-5 before snatching the tiebreak, Murray unable to convert his one match point.
The momentum seemed to be with Copil but he blinked first in the decider, two unforced errors and a first double-fault handing Murray two break points.
The two-time Wimbledon champion converted the second and served out, securing victory with an ace to reach his first semi-final since the French Open in 2017.
Murray said: “I haven’t played a lot of matches in the last few years so when you get to the end of the match it’s always difficult to serve it out.
“I played a bad game at 5-3 in the second set and after that he gained a lot of confidence.
“He served extremely well, he was being a lot more aggressive in both the second and third sets.
“Thankfully I managed to get the break at the end, but it was a tough one to get through.
“I feel okay right now, but it’s more about how you feel the following day.
“The good thing about the indoor matches is that the points are fairly short, so it doesn’t take as much out of you.” • JOHANNA Konta has brought her season to a premature end because of a troublesome knee injury.
The British No.1 has not played since losing to Elina Svitolina in the US Open quarter-finals in early September.
Her latest withdrawal is from the Elite Trophy in Zhuhai next week, a second-tier end-of-season event for those top-20 players who missed out on a spot at the WTA Finals. Sunday’s performance as well.
“We’ve just got to keep working hard and getting chances. We’ll start banging them in at some point. There’s not much you can do. You’ve just got to put your head down, work hard and the goals will come.”
Manchester will be missing Great Britain international defenceman and captain Dallas Ehrhardt for tonight’s clash as he serves the second of a twogame suspension.
• FORMER Giants winger Steve Saviano is the latest player to have been confirmed to return for Mark Garside’s testimonial on February 11.
Tough examination: Andy Murray MANAGER Pat Magee believes Anthony Cacace can cause an upset on November 30 and land the British super-featherweight title.
Cacace has teamed up with new coach Harry Hawkins and Magee believes his experience can be a major asset for the Belfast man, who will challenge champion Sam Bowen in Birmingham next month.
Ahead of Monday’s official announcement of the clash, which will headline a multi-title show to be screened by BT Sport, Magee says he can already see the impact Hawkins is having on the challenger.
“Harry is vastly experienced and he will have Anthony in top shape for this fight with Bowen, which could be a cracker,” said Magee.
“This is a great opportunity for Anthony and he knows he will have to be at his very best to beat Bowen, who is flying high and has a world ranking.
“Harry and Anthony are working very well together and it’s great to see that Anthony is responding to Harry cracking the whip.
“With the fight being shown live on BT Sport, it really is a massive opportunity and they don’t come along too often. I’m very confident that it is a chance Anthony can grab with both hands.”
It has been a traumatic week for boxing with the tragic passing of American light-middleweight Patrick Day following his bout last weekend in Chicago and there was further sadness with the death of expert cornerman Benny King.
“Benny was one of the great men of British boxing. He was a great cutsman and worked with many champions including Brian Magee and everyone in the sport is very sad to hear of his passing,” said Magee.