Grit And Determination See Andy Into Semis

It was increasingly obvious that Andy was struggling with an injury as he quickly went down 2-5 in the opening set. The trainer was called and Andy had a 3 minute medical time out. He lay prone on his stomach while the ATP trainer worked hard on the muscles in the small of his back. Unfortunately the first set was beyond his reach and David Ferrer took it 6-2.

Andy was clearly still finding movement difficult and his increasing frustration led to him receiving a code of conduct violation after an exchange of words with the umpire. Despite all this Andy battled on earning a service break late in the second set and then closing it out 6-3.

Although serving better and finding his shots Andy was still struggling with movement and lost his serve to trail 3-5 in the final set. As the Spaniard served for the match Andy refused to concede, breaking back and going on to hold serve to take the match into a tie-break.

Ferrer took first blood in the breaker but Andy soon leveled the score. The excitement mounted as both players held match points but neither on their own serve. The tension increased further as Ferrer failed to capitalize on a match point on his serve. Finally at 8-8 and with Ferrer serving, Andy took a mini-break with an incredible forehand crosscourt shot which brought the Roddick camp to their feet. Making no mistake he held his own serve to take the breaker 10-8.

Wearing a large grin Andy raised both arms into the air to salute his 2-6, 6-3, 7-6(8) victory

Best wishes from all at ar.com for tomorrow’s semi-final. Doug it is time to work your magic!