MURRAY STILL ON COURSE.

So, Andy Murray has scraped into the semi-final of Wimbledon.

How he actually made it through is a bit of a mystery as his general demeanour for most of the match was downbeat and his style of play seemed to almost hand points to his opponent, the 'duracell-bunnie' that is otherwise known as David Ferrer. For a set and a half, Murray was outplayed, standing far too deep and surrendering too much of the court and most of the attacking options to his opponent. Nonetheless, the first set only went to Ferrer on a tie break, as did the second, only with the opposite outcome. From this point on, Murray slowly began to take a greater share of the play and was eventually a worthy, if laboured, winner. It still took a fourth set tie-break, though.

Murray's semi-final opponent will be the hard-hitting Frenchman Jo-Wilfred Tsonga, who will be a very different proposition from Ferrer. Whatever the result, Tsonga will certainly get a better reception from the Wimbledon crowd than did Murray from the spectators at Roland Garros when he was beating Tsonga'a French compatriot, Richard Gasquet; Wimbledon crowds don't 'Boo !' anyone for simply playing well.

Will Murray be the first Briton to reach the men's singles' final since 1938 when Bunny Austin was one of the 4 Grand Slam victims for Donald Budge that year ? Or will he even go one better and become our first men's champion since Fred Perry won the last of his three successive titles in 1936 ?

Jo-Wilfred Tsonga, and then either Novak Djokovic or Roger Federer stand between Murray and tennis history. Might we have a Diamond Jubilee winner ?