Murray battles into final

Andy Murray moved into his second successive Australian Open final after overcoming a poor start to scrape past David Ferrer in four sets.

It could have been a very different story had Ferrer converted a point for a two-sets-to-love lead, especially given Murray's downbeat disposition up to that point.

But the British number one served himself out of trouble and then, having clinched the set on a tie-break, raced through the third before wearing down the Spaniard in another breaker to complete a 4-6 7-6 (7/2) 6-1 7-6 (7/2) victory and set up a final against Novak Djokovic.

Paying tribute to Ferrer, Murray said: "He's an unbelievable athlete and an unbelievable competitor. He works so hard, he's in great shape. I was expecting an unbelievably tough match and I got it.

"It's obviously great I managed to come through but he's such a tough player to play against. At the start of the second set I started to go for my shots a bit more and it paid off."

He admitted his slow start was in part due to tension.

"There's going to be nerves at the start of the match and that was definitely the case," Murray said.

Last year's beaten finalist remarkably had not realised he was facing a set point on his serve in the second set, when trailing 5-4.

"You're probably not going to believe this but I thought it was 4-3," Murray said.

"I didn't know until the umpire called 5-5. That probably helped me."