Murray mashes Swede to reach Doha semi-finals

Andy Murray came through an attritional first set to book his place in the semi-finals of the Qatar Open with a 7-6, 6-0 victory over the Swede Thomas Johansson.

It sets up a meeting with either Nikolay Davydenko or Dmitri Tursunov as the Scot looks to reach his second successive final in Doha having been runner-up to Ivan Ljubicic 12 months ago.

Every game in the first set went with serve, although Murray had to come back from love-30 down to rescue his first trip to the baseline. The Scot's first break point did not come until the seventh game, but he was unable to finish the job and Johansson recovered. A service game to love lifted Britain's No 1 in the next and the pair played out the set to a tie-break.

Murray struck early by winning the first point off his Swedish opponent's serve and from there on was never behind, winning the tie-break 7-4 and the set in 61 minutes. That seemed to give him the impetus he needed and Murray closed out the match in a further 21 minutes as Johansson collapsed.

The Swede was broken for the first time in the second game of the next set as Murray claimed a 2-0 lead and from that point he was coasting as two further breaks saw the 20-year-old Scot race to victory.