Britain's Andy Murray moved into his fourth final at the Australian Open with a convincing victory over Tomas Berdych in four sets, despite a poor start. In a tough struggle against the number seven-seeded Czech player, he finally clinched the match after three and a half hours of play, to set up a final with either the reigning champion Stan Wawrinka or the number one seed Novak Djokovic on Sunday.
It was a focussed performance by Murray as he made up for the disappointment of missing opportunities in the first set (which he lost on the tie-break), to regain his focus as his opponent seemed to lose his, to take the next three sets.
Indeed, it was an up and down performance by Berdych, as he only seemed to find his true form in the first and fourth sets. In between, the British number one maintained his consistency to turn the match around, demonstrating that he is fully recovered from his back surgery and playing at his peak levels once more. His movement around the court was exceptional, ensuring that his opponent always had one more shot to play in the rallies and forcing him into trying for maybe too much on many of his shots as a result.
Following the tie-break loss of the first set, Murray clicked into gear in the second as he found his range on his opponent's serve, to 'bagel' him 6-0 as the tide shifted firmly in the Scot's favour.
He followed that up with a 6-3 margin in the third set to have at least one foot in the final.
Not that the Czech player ever gave up on the semi-final, as he battled on gamely in the fourth set. Indeed, had he taken one of the two break points on offer in game six of that set on the Murray serve, then it may well have pushed the match into a fifth set.
As it was, Murray crucially held his service on that occasion and piled on the pressure as the scores reached 5-5 on Berdych's serve. So much so, that his rival double-faulted to hand the Brit a break point at 15-40, and a point later he pushed his shot long to hand the game and break to Murray.
Serving for the match at 6-5, the number six seed looked determined to not let the chance slip away and he clinched it in decisive fashion with an ace.
He now looks forward to his eighth Grand Slam final in all and his third Grand Slam title, which should he win it would be his first in Australia.
Murray was highly complementary of his coach Amelie Mauresmo afterwards in his on-court interview, besides pushing the claims of other female coaches such as Lindsay Davenport's work with Madison Keys. It suggests that he wants to win the title not only for himself, but also to back his own judgement in choosing her to be his coach, after all the off-court commentaries suggesting that it was maybe a poor decision on his part to do so. Mauresmo knows how to win in Australia, having taken the women's title there herself as recently as 2006, so Murray will be hoping that she can help him to do likewise this time.