Andy Murray In Danger Of Being Undercooked As Sony Semi Final Approaches

Andy Murray's straight sets victory over Fernando Verdasco on Thursday showed us all how the British Number 1 has come on as a player in such a short space of time, since he last took on the Spaniard at the Australian Open in January.

On that occasion Murray saw a rampaging Verdasco never give up, and come-back from two-sets to one down to win the match and progress to the quarter-finals.

Murray had high hopes for that tournament, after his US Open runner up finish he endured the previous year he was keen to build on his relative success.

Verdasco had hoped to do the same to Murray at this weeks Sony Ericsson Open, where the Brit had plans of leapfrogging Novak Djokovic into third in the ATP World Rankings, by winning this weeks competition in Miami.

Murray however showed his progression as a player, and disposed of an 'injured' Verdasco, dropping just three games en-route to sealing his semi-final birth with Argentine Juan Martin Del Potro.

I say ‘injured’ with inverted commas, because in the last twelve months eight players have withdrawn from a match with Murray due to injury.

This stat does make interesting reading, and for me is tribute to the fear-factor Murray has instil in players all over the tour.

Now Verdasco did continue with the match until the end, but for me he was well beaten before the injury occurred late in the first set.

Now in a tournament taking place over a week, momentum is important and being able to turn up day after day and put in a performance is vital, being underdone can being your undoing, while being too tired can see your performance drop considerably.

My concern is Murray’s time on court has been far shorter than most of his rivals, to the extend he hasn’t had enough match practise to get him through the tournament now we enter the business end.

The longest the Brit has spent on court was in his opening match against another Argentine Juan Monaco.

However 58 minutes were taken up beating Viktor Troicki, dropping just a single game in the 4th round.

Yesterday’s match against his first world class opponent, was expected to go the distance, something we didn’t even see a sniff of as Verdasco pulled off numerous unforced errors to gift Murray the win.

His previous two matches have hardly strained the world number four, and when he goes into his semi-final encounter with Del Potro he could find himself low on match time this week.

Should this pose a real problem against De Potro this evening though? Well Maybe not.

Game time is almost at the other end of the spectrum when you think about Del Potro, who was on court nearly two hours longer than Murray was on Thursday.

Del Potro of course took on Rafael Nadal, and as the final set went into a deciding tie-breaker the new world number five is sure to be feeling it after one of the biggest victories in his career.

Nadal made Del Potro fight for every point and the physical nature of the match is sure to have taken plenty out of Murray’s opponent.

Will he be able to rise again in the semi-final? Or will Murray he halted by the express train that is Del Potro, who is sure to be riding one crest of a wave after his win over the world number one, momentum could be the Brit’s undoing.

With Murray having little court time, maybe this is Del Potro’s chance to seize the moment and reach his first Masters Series final.