Avoids upset
Scot comes from two sets down to put away Verdasco
Andy Murray of Scotland lost the first two sets to Fernando Verdasco before rallying to advance Wednesday to the semifinal round at Wimbledon.
Associated Press
LONDON — They sighed when Andy Murray faulted.
They stood and roared when he hit winners.
And when Murray dropped the first two sets of his Wimbledon quarterfi nal Wednesday, the 15,000 Centre Court spectators were suddenly so silent that birds could be heard chirping.
By the time his fiveset comeback was nearly complete, more than two hours later, the fans were greeting each point that went Murray’s way with celebrations of the sort normally reserved for a championship. It’s been 77 years since a British man won the country’s Grand Slam tennis tournament, and thanks to the secondseeded Murray’s 4- 6, 3- 6, 6-1, 6- 4, 7-5 victory over 54th-ranked Fernando Verdasco, the locals still can hold out hope the wait will end Sunday.
First things f irst, of course. Murray, who is from Scotland, will play in the semifinals at the All England Club for the fifth consecutive year Friday, facing No. 24 Jerzy Janowicz of Poland.
The other semifinal is No. 1 Novak Djokovic of Serbia against No. 8 Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina.
There is no doubt who will be the recipient of the most boisterous support.
“Great atmosphere at the end of the match. ... I love it when it’s like that. It was extremely noisy,” said Murray, who lost last year’s Wimbledon final to Roger Federer.
Murray needed to summon some pretty strong tennis, and plenty of grit, for his seventh career victory after facing a two-set deficit. He never panicked no matter what all of his self-admonishing muttering and gesticulating looked like and eventually figured out how to handle Verdasco’s 130 mph serves and high-risk, high-reward style.
“When you play more and more matches, and gain more experience, you understand how to turn matches around and how to change the momentum of games,” Murray said. “Maybe when I was younger, I could have lost that match. But I think I’ve learnt how to come back from tough situations more as I got older.”
He’s only 26, but he truly has matured as a player over the past 12 months. After shedding tears following the 2012 Wimbledon final, Murray returned to the same spot four weeks later and beat Federer to win a gold medal at the London Olympics. Then, at the U.S. Open in September, he defeated Djokovic to win his first Grand Slam title.
Wednesday’s other quarterfinals lasted a mere three sets each and the most compelling segments came at the very beginning of 2009 U.S. Open champion del Potro’s 6-2, 6- 4, 7- 6 (5) win against No. 4 David Ferrer, and the very end of Janowicz’s 7-5, 6- 4, 6- 4 victory over 130th-ranked Lukasz Kubot in the first Grand Slam match between two men from Poland.