Andy Murray eases past Grigor Dimitrov and into semi-finals

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Andy Murray continued his run of good form at the Thailand Open in Bangkok, easing into the last four at the expense of Grigor Dimitrov.

Murray's 6-4 6-4 victory in one hour and 28 minutes means the Scot remains on course to take his third title of the season.

The early stages of the first set went with serve, although Murray had to save three break points in order to avoid an early setback.

Dimitrov was made to pay as Murray, in the ninth game, exerted his influence to break the Bulgarian's serve. The Scot then served it out to win the first set.

The second set followed a similar pattern. It was the ninth game once more in which Murray made the breakthrough and, again, he served out to win the match and a place in the semi-final.

Murray will face France's Gilles Simon in the semi-final, who fought back to beat Germany's Matthias Bachinger 3-6 6-3 6-2.

Murray was pleased with his service game today - and set himself a target of moving up the world rankings by the end of 2011.

"I served well again," Murray told atpworldtour.com.

"He started the match pretty well and once I served a couple of break points in my second service game, the momentum was then with me for a lot of the match.

"I did not give him too many opportunities on my serve. Returning is normally one of the strongest parts of my game, so when I served well I tended to put pressure on him and he missed a few shots at the end of both sets."

Murray added: "By playing the full Asian stretch, there is a chance for me to try and move my ranking up by one spot, which is something I want to do by the end of the year."