Murray won his second Masters Series title in Madrid on Sunday

Andy Murray was made to work hard as he progressed to the St Petersburg Open semi-finals with a 7-6 (7-5) 7-5 win over Janko Tipsarevic.

Murray's spirited Serbian opponent battled back from a break down to take the first set to a tie break.

In the second set, Tipsarevic again hit back from a break down to take a 4-3 lead, but the British number one broke serve at 5-5 and held for victory.

Murray will play third seed Fernando Verdasco for a place in the final.

Tipsarevic had won two of his three previous matches against defending champion Murray - in the first round at Queen's Club in 2006 and then in Moscow last year.

And there were moments during the quarter-final when it seemed the world number 48 would cause an upset and end the Scot's defence of the title.

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Murray, 21, began positively, with two aces in the opening game, and broke in the next before holding to lead 3-0.

But Tipsarevic took the fourth game to trigger a burst of fine tennis.

The Serb looked comfortable and made it 4-4 to take the set to a tie-break, which the world number four won.

Murray again broke early in the second thanks to a sublime crosscourt backhand but, just as in the first set, Tipsarevic fought back.

However, Murray dug deep for a chance to win his fifth title of a hugely successful year.

"It was a tough win, but I tried to keep myself concentrated, played every ball up to the end and it worked," he said.

In the other quarter-final matches, Spain's Verdasco beat Germany's Rainer Schuettler 7-5 6-2.

"I lost to Murray in the final last year, so this time I'm hoping for revenge," said the Spaniard.

"To do that I will have to be more confident in myself and use my chances."

Andrey Golubev of Kazakhstan beat Germany's Mischa Zverev 6-7 6-4 7-6 and will play Victor Hanescu is the other semi-final after the Romanian eased past home favourite Michail Elgin 6-1 6-4.