Fired-up Murray finally gets Aussies to sit up and tune in

IT HAS taken him four matches to get there, but today Andy Murray finally gets top billing at the Australian Open for his fourth-round showdown with Grigor Dimitrov.

The two of them have been given the prime-time slot of the late evening match on the main Rod Laver Arena — at about 9.45am UK time this morning — even getting the vote over local heroes Nick Kyrgios and Bernard Tomic.

Although Murray-Dimitrov is a lip-smacking prospect, it was still a surprise move, given how much interest there is here in the gifted young Australians, who were scheduled on the Margaret Court and Hisense Arenas. Imagine Britain having two emerging young players making the last 16 of Wimbledon and newspaper front pages, and then being scheduled on Court One and Two, and you get the idea.

Murray has been in excellent form, and about the only thing that has been bothering him is the concern he expressed this weekend with his brother about how few tennis facilities have been built in his native Scotland.

For now, he will concentrate in reversing the outcome of the Wimbledon quarter-final of last summer when Dimitrov knocked an unusually flat and tetchy opponent out in straight sets.

One factor in this match is that sitting in the Bulgarian’s corner, as he was in SW19, is Australian coach Roger Rasheed, such a respected friend of the Scot that he came close to hiring him as his head coach before the appointment of Ivan Lendl at the start of 2012.

As a result Murray and Dimitrov are regular sparring partners. ‘We were actually going to be practising with Andy the weekend before the tournament started, but then we found out that we were close to each other in the draw, so obviously neither player would want to hit with the other under those circumstances,’ said Rasheed yesterday.

‘It’s one of those cases where they know each other’s games well, there aren’t going to be too many secrets between them.’

It will be their seventh meeting, with Murray leading the series 4-2, both of his two defeats coming last year.

What is clear from Murray’s demeanour here is that he has his ‘game head’ on, and is very fired up to produce another run deep into this event. Overall you would predict him to edge it, although Dimitrov is a wonderful shotmaker and a surefire future Grand Slam winner capable of beating anyone.