Is Murray playing mind games before Thursday’s clash in Melbourne?
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British number one Andy Murray says Tomas Berdych is “slight favourite” for their Australian Open semi-final clash on Thursday.
Murray labelled Berdych favourite due to the fact his former coach Dani Vallverdu is now helping the big-serving Czech.
“I think it’s a huge advantage. With the way Tomas has been playing, I would expect that he would go into the match probably as the slight favourite,” Murray told the BBC.
However, Murray said Vallverdu’s partnership with Berdych could “work both ways”.
“Maybe I’ll find it weird on the day but it’s just something that you deal with as a player,” he said.
“My goal isn’t to beat Dani; my goal is to beat Berdych. So I don’t think about that in the next few days.
“I also know what Dani thinks of Berdych’s game because he’s told me, so it works both ways.”
The Scot was impressive during his straight-sets win over Nick Kyrgios on Wednesday, but he’ll have to be at his best to beat the man who took apart Rafael Nadal on the same day.
Berdych steamrolled an off-colour Nadal 6-2, 6-0, 7-6 on Rod Laver Arena and is perhaps in the best form of his career.
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