Tomas Berdych is relishing what promises to be a hotly-anticipated rematch with Andy Murray today after the Czech powered into the last four with a straight-sets win against Juan Monaco in the Miami Open quarter-finals.
Eighth seed Berdych defeated Argentine Monaco 6-3, 6-4 to ensure a first meeting with Murray since their tense and at times acrimonious Australian Open semi-final which Murray won in four sets.
Berdych and Monaco traded breaks early in the first set, but the World No. 9 would earn the pivotal break for a 5-3 lead. The 29-year-old Czech went on to serve out the first set at love.
The second set was even-keeled for the first eight games before Berdych broke for a 5-4 lead. The Czech served out the 92-minute victory at love.
"He was playing really well," said Berdych. "I managed to find situations, to create opportunities, and I executed them. I'm really pleased with that.
"There were a couple of long, tough rallies. The conditions were not easy. So there were a couple of challenges I needed to face, but I managed them all and went through."
On his fiery meeting with Murray in Australia, the Czech said: 'What's positive for me is that I think [Murray] played a very good tournament [in Australia], very good tennis, and I managed to find a way to win a set. It's definitely going to be my goal to stick to the game plan and execute it.'
Berdych is coached by Murray's former assistant Dani Vallverdu and has recently started working with the Brit's former fitness trainer Jez Green.
Meanwhile in the womens draw in Miami World number one Serena Williams claimed a landmark 700th career victory after overcoming a second set wobble to defeat Sabine Lisicki in the quarter-finals.
The world number one, a 19-time grand slam champion, edged a first set tie-break against her 27th seeded opponent, who then took advantage of Williams' inconsistency to take the match to a decider.
Williams had uncharacteristically made 17 unforced errors in the second set alone but bounced back against the German in the third, opening up a 3-0 lead before triumphing 7-6 (7/4) 1-6 6-3.
She is the eighth woman in the Open era to reach 700 match wins - although she is still well behind the record holder Martina Navratilova, who claimed 1,442 career victories.
The 33-year-old American was presented with a cake following the match but admitted she was oblivious to her record.
"I had no idea," Williams said on the WTA Tour website. "I saw them bringing out a cake and I thought, 'Whose birthday is it today?' But I really had no idea about it, so I'm really excited right now."
Williams was less enthusiastic about her performance against Lisicki, adding: "Today wasn't my best day. I wasn't serving the way I normally serve or hitting the way I normally hit, so all I could do was just fight and try to give 200 per cent instead of 100 per cent."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article