Long wait may be at an end thanks to Scotsman

Andy Murray is giving crowd reason to hope

His two-set deficit in the Wimbledon quarterfinals already erased, Andy Murray evened the fifth at 4-4, looked into the Centre Court stands and shook his fist.

‘‘Come on!’’ he bellowed. ‘‘Come on, now!’’

Already riled up by the Scot’s comeback from a two-set deficit, the 15,000 or so spectators stood and roared even louder.

It’s been 77 years since a British man won the country’s grand slam tennis tournament, and Murray is giving the locals reason to believe that wait will end Monday morning (NZ time).

Buoyed by a boisterous partisan crowd, the second-seeded Murray got past 54th-ranked Fernando Verdasco of Spain 4-6 3-6 6-1 6-4 7-5 to complete his seventh career comeback after trailing by two sets.

‘‘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.

‘‘They were right into it, pretty much every single point.’’

Into the semifinals at the All England Club for the fifth consecutive year, Murray will face No 24 Jerzy Janowicz of Poland tomorrow morning.

The other semifinal is No 1 Novak Djokovic of Serbia against No 8 Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina.

‘‘For sure, [the] crowd will not really help me but we’ll see how it’s going to be,’’ said Janowicz, the first Polish man to get to the final four at a major tournament. ‘‘This is my first semifinal ever so I don’t know what to expect.’’

The rest of the guys are more accustomed to this stage, especially Djokovic, who extended his streak to 13 consecutive grand slam semifinals — second in history only to Roger Federer’s 23 — when he beat No 7 Tomas Berdych 7-6 (5) 6-4 6-3.

Djokovic entered the match with a 13-2 lead in their head-tohead series, but one loss came at Wimbledon in 2010, when Berdych was the runner-up, and the other came in their most recent meeting, at Rome in May.

The first set was tight as can be, and Berdych led 5-4 in the tiebreaker before he faltered.

He sent a return long, badly missed what should have been a routine backhand then pushed a forehand wide for another error.

That gave Djokovic the opening set but Berdych responded strongly when he broke twice to lead 3-0 in the second. Not surprisingly, Djokovic awoke again, taking seven of the next eight games.

‘‘I don’t know how I managed to turn the second set around,’’ said six-time major champion Djokovic, who won Wimbledon in 2011.

‘‘I managed to step in and just tried to be a little bit more aggressive. That brought me a victory.’’

He’s won all 15 sets he’s played as has Del Potro, the 2009 US Open champion, after his 6-2 6-4 7-6 (5) win against No 4 David Ferrer.

At the start, though, things looked grim for del Potro.

On the fifth point against Ferrer, the 6ft 6in Argentine’s left foot slid out from under him as he sprinted to reach a ball.

Del Potro’s heavily wrapped left knee, which he hyperextended on a face-first tumble in the third round, slackened, bent backward.

‘‘Really painful,’’ del Potro said. ‘‘I was scared.’’

He fell to the turf and rolled over twice then stayed down until a trainer came out to check on him and dispense antiinflammatory medicine.

‘‘Magic pills,’’ del Potro called them.

After a 10-minute break, he resumed playing — and playing quite well. ‘‘Come on.’’: Andy Murray reacts during his win over Fernando Verdasco.

Photo: Getty Images