Murray subdues Ferrer to continue British charge

She is the first British woman to go so far in a Grand Slam since Jo Durie made the last eight at Wimbledon in 1984 – and the world number 47 is on a roll.

Williams said she wasn’t aware that she had won the Australian Open all six previous times she won her quarterfinal match, “but that’s good”.

The world number two was forced to scrap for nearly every point but finally subdued the indefatigable Spanish eighth seed after three hours and 20 minutes of punishing baseline tennis on Rod Laver Arena. Things then went with serve until Ferrer won the set 6-4 in 41 minutes.

He may lack the weapons routinely needed to win a major tournament – he has reached four major semi-finals and one final in his career – but his consistency at the top of the men’s game makes him a serious proposition for the British No 1. Born in Australia but living in Britain since her early teens, Konta also has Hungarian citizenship and calls herself a “tri-citizen”.

Johanna Konta beat Chinese qualifier Zhang Shuai 6-4, 6-1 to reach the semifinals at the Australian Open, becoming the first British woman to advance the last four of a Grand Slam event since 1983.

Murray will play the victor of the last quarter-final between Milos Raonic and Gael Monfils as he bids to reach a fifth Australian Open final.

Novak Djokovic and Federer will contest the other semifinal.

– Victoria Azarenka on how she copes with a big loss. But he added that speculation about specific players isn’t fair without evidence of wrongdoing.

Back on the courts, Murray’s match with Ferrer involved plenty of long rallies.

“Roger’s in kind of the same position as David, both of them have been around the game for a long, long time and been up at the top”, Murray said.

Ferrer came into the match as the only man in the draw not to have dropped a set, but the Spaniard was outclassed by Murray’s attacking prowess, particularly after the stadium’s roof was closed in the third set following a nearby thunderstorm.

“Obviously the last few days have been tough and maybe I hadn’t played my best tennis and managed to get through”.

I said that Berdych would need to serve very well, and he didn’t, with only 49% of first serves in play during the all-important set one and a total of 54% for the match, which just wasn’t going to cut it.

Five times in their last 10 meetings the first set has ended 6-4 and it does seem that if Murray is on his game he just does pretty much everything that bit better than his opponent.

“That’s all I can keep doing and working hard”.

Kerber went down a break in the second set before winning five consecutive games and saving five set points before beating two-time champion Azarenka, the result coming as a surprise despite the difference in seedings. “It was a big deal for me”, he said. 6-2, 6-3 victor against No. 8 David Ferrer, was continually off-put by his inability to end rallies on his own terms.