Murray loses 1st two sets, gets win
No. 2 seed moves on to semifinals against Janowicz
LONDON — They sighed when Andy Murray faulted.
They stood and roared when he hit winners.
And when Murray dropped the fi rst 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 fi veset 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 second- seeded 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 fi rst, course. Murray, who of is from Scotland, will play in the semifi nals at the All England Club for the fi fth 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. “They were right into it, pretty much every single point.”
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 fi gured out how to handle Verdasco’s 130 mph serves and high- risk, high- reward style.
Murray’s mother, British Fed Cup captain Judy Murray, called the match “one of the toughest to sit through.”
“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 learned 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 quarterfi nals 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 130thranked Lukasz Kubot in the first Grand Slam match between two men from Poland.
Janowicz, 22, reached his first major semifi nal by pounding serves at a tournamenthigh 140 mph, compiling 30 aces . When it fi nished, Kubot walked around the net to Janowicz’s side of the court and the pair of Davis Cup teammates and good pals embraced. Then they yanked their white shirts off and exchanged them.
Janowicz sat in his sideline chair, covered his face and sobbed.
“It’s not easy to control all of the feelings inside my body,” he said. “I was never in ( a major) quarterfinal before. I never had a chance to be in ( the) semifinal of a Grand Slam. I never played against Lukasz before.”