Murray sets up Wimbledon semi-final with Nadal

Roger Federer may be out of Wimbledon but the other three top seeds all made it through to the semi finals to leave Andy Murray with the daunting prospect of a semi-final against Rafa Nadal on Friday.

After the excitement of seeing Federer lose at Wimbledon for only the second time since 2002 the Centre Court crowd were expecting great things from local favourite Murray, who is seeded fourth.

However, the Scot contrived to lose the first set against his opponent, Frenchman Jo-Wilfred Tsonga, the number 10 seed, on a tie-break - and the atmosphere on Centre Court became a little more tense.

The second set was just as tight as the first, and that also went to a tie-break. Before the match Murray had won just three out of the nine tiebreaks he had played in 2010, and he looked set to go two sets down when Tsonga had a chance to serve out the set.

But on his first point the Frenchman left a Murray return, thinking it was long, only to see it bounce on the line. That was a massive turning point as Murray then won the next point to win the set and level the match at 1-1.

After that Murray hit top gear and broke Tsonga twice in the third set to win it 6-2. He was even more clinical in the fourth, breaking Tsonga twice more to once again take the set 6-2, this time in just 23 minutes, and with it the match.

But if this is to be Murray's year then he will have to get past Rafa Nadal. The Spaniard's record at Wimbledon is not quite as impressive as Federer's, but he is unbeaten since the final of 2007, although he missed last year's tournament with a knee injury.

Nadal, the world number one and second seed, also dropped the first set of his quarter final against Swede Robin Soderling, but fought back to win 3-6, 6-3, 7-6, 6-1.    

The main beneficiary of the Swiss legend's shock exit is third seed Novak Djokovic, who now has a great chance to get to his first Wimbledon final after the draw opened up for him.

He was expected to have to face both last year's winner, Federer, and runner-up, Andy Roddick, if he was to go all the way. But the Serb ended up playing world number 82 Lu Yen-hsun in the quarter-final after the Taiwanese player knocked Roddick out in the last 16.

Now he faces Tomas Berdych, the conqueror of Federer, in the semi. The Czech will present him with a tough challenge, but a somewhat less intimidating one than Federer would have posed. ·