Murray into last four

Britain’s Andy Murray set up a potential semi-final meeting with top seed Andy Roddick after beating Stefan Koubek 6-3 6-2 in the quarter-final of the Morgan Keegan Championships in Memphis.

Having beaten Denmark’s Kristian Pless in two sets to secure his showdown with Koubek 24 hours earlier, Murray was already showing the kind of form that brought him victory at the SAP Open in San Jose last week.

The 19-year-old was quickly into his stride and while his own serve looked strong he soon broke his Austrian opponent.

Despite letting set point slip, the Scot took the set comfortably to win it 6-3 with Koubek unable to make any inroads on the Murray serve.

Murray broke again in the third game of the second set after the first two games had followed serve.

The British number one looked in danger of conceding a break for the first time in the following game but survived two break points to break Koubek’s resistance and race into a 3-1 lead.

He extended that advantage again in the following game, completing a second consecutive break of serve before holding his own to take a stranglehold on the match.

Koubek successfully defended match point at 5-1 down before taking his second game of the set.

Roddick plays Yen-Hsun Lu of Chinese Taipei in his quarter-final and will meet Murray if he wins.

Murray beat the American at the same stage on his way to victory in San Jose last week.