By Philip James
Jamie Murray/John Peers def Robert Lindstedt/Vasek Pospisil 3-6 6-3 10-6
Jamie Murray and John Peers continued they excellent form today, winning their quarter-final at the Shanghai Rolex Masters in China.
The pair battled back from a set down against the team of doubles veteran Robert Lindstedt and the promising youngster Vasek Pospisil 3-6 6-3 10-6 to make the semi-final.
Murray and his Australian partner have been in fine form of late and this run keeps alive their hopes of reaching the end of season World Tour Finals in London in November.
London-born Dominic Inglot and his partner, Filipino Treat Huey, also played their quarter-final today but were beaten by the world number ones, Bob and Mike Bryan.
Murray and Peers had not dropped a set in their first two rounds on the Chinese hard courts but were always in for a stern test in their quarter-final.
Sweden’s Lindstedt is ranked 17th in the world in doubles and is in the 14th ranked team with his frequent partner Nenad Zimonjic.
Meanwhile Canadian Pospisil has shot up the singles rankings due to a Challenger win in July followed by a run to the Montreal Masters semis as a wildcard.
A single break of serve was enough for Lindstedt and Pospisil to take the first set and they threatened to move ahead early in the next.
But Peers saved two break points in the first game of the second set and Murray saved another to hold to make it 2-1 before breaking serve themselves for the first time in the match.
After serving out the set, the pair then won the deciding Champion’s Tie-break, 10-6 to take the match in an hour and 14 minutes.
Murray and Australian Peers are the only non-seeds left in the draw and will play their semi-final against eighth seeds Fernando Verdasco and David Marrero tomorrow.
Before that match, the top-seeded Bryan brothers take on Ivan Dodig and Marcelo Melo, seeded fifth, in their semi-final.
This will be only Murray’s second ever Masters Series semi-final, having lost his first when he and Max Mirnyi made the last four of Indian Wells back in 2008.
That partnership ended later that year but the Murray will be hoping to continue his current pairing for some time to come.
Murray and Peers only started playing together in February and reached the semi-final of their first tournament.
The pair have played together almost permanently ever since and have reached four ATP tour finals this year, winning three of them including beating the Bryan Brothers in the final of the US Men’s Clay Court Championships.
Their lowly ranking saw them play in some Challenger tournaments early this year but now both men are in the top 35 and Shanghai signifies the first time their rankings have qualified them for a Masters Series tournament together.
Though Inglot could not join Murray in the semi final, he and Huey have had an impressive weak.
A nightmare draw saw them pitted against last week’s China Open champions, Mirnyi and Horia Tecau in round one, a tie which they won 17-15 in the deciding third set breaker.
They then beat last week’s Japan Open champions, Rohan Bopanna and Edouard Roger-Vasselin in round two before finally succumbing 7-5 7-6(4) to the Bryan Brothers.
Jonathan Marray and Fleming also won through a tough first round match against Scott Lipsky and Santiago Gonzalez but lost in round two to second seeds Marc Lopez and Marcel Granollers.