I'll be ready for Murray says Roddick

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Thursday 02 July 2009 10:28 BST
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Andy Roddick insists he has plenty left in the tank for his Wimbledon semi-final against Andy Murray after an epic five-set win over Lleyton Hewitt.

The sixth seed needed nearly four hours to defeat Hewitt 6-3 6-7 (10/12) 7-6 (7/1) 4-6 6-4 in their quarter-final on Court One yesterday.

Next up for Roddick is a last-four meeting with the British number one on Centre Court tomorrow.

The American has been rejuvenated by an off-season spent working on his fitness and his reward is a second grand slam semi-final in six months after he also reached the last four in Australia.

Roddick said: "I felt fine out there physically. I'm sure I'll pull up a little bit sore, but that's to be expected.

"I feel fit and I feel healthy. I'm in better shape now than I was when I was 24."

Roddick has lost six of his eight matches against Murray, including a third-round meeting at Wimbledon in 2006, and he admitted the Hewitt battle had been gruelling.

"It was tough from a mental standpoint, because Lleyton wasn't going away and there were kind of a lot of ebbs and flows to the match," he explained. "I'm just happy to be on the good side of it."

On the other side of the draw, Tommy Haas is revelling in his dream Wimbledon run after finally putting a string of bad luck behind him.

The 31-year-old German, who had never been past the fourth round in 10 previous visits to SW19, secured a 7-5 7-6 (8/6) 4-6 6-3 victory over fourth seed Novak Djokovic yesterday to set up a semi-final against tournament favourite Roger Federer.

Haas, seeded 24th, said: "In 13, 14 years of me playing Wimbledon, there's a lot of bad luck involved.

"There was one year when I would have been maybe seeded three but my parents had a really bad motorcycle accident so I skipped that year.

"Then, when I had a pretty decent draw where I felt I could get far in the draw, I stepped on a ball in a warm-up and I also lost three tie-breaks against Wayne Arthurs in the third round one year.

"That's all in the past. I always felt deep down that Wimbledon will maybe still have something left for me."

Federer insists he is keeping thoughts of making tennis history firmly in the back of his mind.

The second seed reached the semi-finals with a convincing 6-3 7-5 7-6 (7/3) victory over big-serving Ivo Karlovic.

It ensured a 21st consecutive appearance in the last four of grand slams for Federer, who will break the record he shares with Pete Sampras of 14 titles if he lifts the trophy on Sunday.

"I'm happy the way I'm playing, which is always most important," said the five-time Wimbledon champion.

"I just won my quarters, so my mind has not started wondering yet. I think tomorrow I'll prepare for a tough weekend ahead of me.

"It would be writing in the history books of tennis but it's not there yet. It's still far away - many points, many serves, many forehands."

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