Murray is outclassed by Soderling at Indian Wells

INDIAN WELLS // Sweden's Robin Soderling delivered a tennis masterclass in the opening set before eliminating the fourth seed, Andy Murray, 6-1, 7-6 in the quarter-finals of the Indian Wells ATP tournament. The sixth-seeded Swede overwhelmed Murray with a dazzling array of deep top-spin forehands, flat backhands and power serving to race through the first set in just 36 minutes.

Although Soderling wobbled serving for the match at 5-3 and 30-0 up, when he was broken for the only time, he recovered to clinch the tie-break 7-4. "I think he played very well to start with, and I didn't," said Murray. "I didn't move particularly well. I was hitting the ball really short, and he's obviously got a big game and he was able to dictate all of the points. "So from my side it was poor, but he hit the ball really big from the back of the court and served well when he needed to."

America's Andy Roddick powered his way past the Spaniard Tommy Robredo 6-3 7-5 earlier in the day to reach the semi-finals at Indian Wells for a fourth time. Roddick broke the 18th-seeded Robredo in the 11th game of the second set before holding serve to seal victory in 78 minutes. "I feel like I'm playing really well on my own serve," Roddick said. "I think I've been broken once, but I don't know that I've had that many break points against me throughout the week.

"That's always a good thing in that holding that easily makes my returns better," added Roddick, who was beating Robredo for the 11th successive time. Roddick, who won his 28th ATP title in Brisbane in January, outplayed his opponent with his all-round power game. The holder, Rafael Nadal, and the 20th-seeded Croatian, Ivan Ljubicic, reached the semi-finals in the other half of the draw * Reuters