Murray ready for Federer clash

Defending champion Andy Murray will face world number one Roger Federer tonight in the Cincinnati Masters semi-finals knowing there is room for improvement following his hard-fought quarter-final win over Julien Benneteau.

Murray ready for Federer clash

Defending champion Andy Murray will face world number one Roger Federer tonight in the Cincinnati Masters semi-finals knowing there is room for improvement following his hard-fought quarter-final win over Julien Benneteau.

The Scot was an overwhelming favourite heading into last night's last-eight tie, but found himself staring at a shock exit when he conceded his first set of the week 6-4 and then went 2-0 down in the second to the French lucky loser.

However, the world number two responded brilliantly with three breaks of serve to level the match and then stormed through to third set to prevail 4-6 6-3 6-1 and secure a last-four date with Federer, who defeated Lleyton Hewitt 6-3 6-4.

Murray admitted afterwards the first set had not gone to plan.

He told Sky Sports Xtra: "I served terrible in the first set - six doubles. The ball was blowing all over the place.

"He obviously played well. It was tricky conditions. I was shanking a lot of balls at the start.

"I was hitting the ball really clean from the back of the court but leaving a lot of balls short so I ended up doing a lot of running, which wasn't really the plan going into the match."

Federer insists the fact Murray is now only one place below him in the rankings will have no bearing on tonight's match.

"I try to beat him like I try to beat every other player," he said. "The rankings for me are secondary.

"You try to play the tournament, not the rankings. If you think about the rankings, which you sometimes tend to do when you're young and up and coming, you think: 'Oh my God, I've got points to defend here', and you can't play freely. I'm way past that point."

Murray became the third singles player to qualify for the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals in London in November after reaching the quarters in Cincinnati.

Federer and Australian Open champion Rafael Nadal had already qualified for the eight-man event, which takes place at the O2 Arena from November 22-29.

Murray beat Federer in the group stages on his debut last year when the tournament was held in Shanghai before losing to Nikolay Davydenko in the semi-finals.

The 22-year-old has enjoyed the best season of his career so far, winning five titles, including his fourth Masters title in Montreal last week, and reaching the Wimbledon semi-finals.

"It's great," said Murray. "I played once at the 02 Arena before and the atmosphere was awesome. I'm sure for the finals it's going to be great.

"It does make a big difference to qualify in the US. You're not worrying about it the last few tournaments and also you don't have to play one or two extra tournaments. You can rest up and make sure you're fresh going into it."

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