Murray is trying to win back-to-back Masters 1000 titles

World number two Andy Murray continued the defence of his Cincinnati Masters title with a battling quarter-final win over France's Julien Benneteau.

Murray let an early lead slip to drop the first before edging past the lucky loser from qualifying 4-6 6-3 6-1.

The Briton, 22, will face Roger Federer in the first of Saturday's semi-finals.

Rafael Nadal, who beat Tomas Berdych 6-4 7-5, will face Novak Djokovic, who overcame Gilles Simon by the same score, in the second semi-final.

Federer, who recently became a father of twin daughters, saw off Lleyton Hewitt 6-3 6-4 as the Australian struggled with a knee injury.

"I didn't pay attention to his knee," said the Swiss. "I just thought he had not a very good day at the office.

I served terrible in the first set - six doubles. The ball was blowing all over the place Andy Murray

"He made quite a few unusual mistakes for him. Maybe he was trying to go for more than he had to because of the knee, he was sort of obliged to."

Murray played his worst set for some time as the quarter-finals got under way, moving a break up with seven straight points on his way to a 3-2 lead before handing the advantage straight back.

Benneteau, who had taken three hours to win an epic encounter against Guillermo Garcia-Lopez on Thursday, continued to attack and was helped as Murray went past 20 unforced errors in game 10.

The Scot then made his sixth double-fault of the day on set point, screaming in frustration as his game failed to come together.

After a brief disagreement with the umpire over a call, Murray's mood did not improve much when he fired a forehand long to go 2-0 down in the second set.

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Benneteau looked on course for another major scalp until Murray fashioned a break-back point in game three and took it after an extraordinary 53-shot rally that saw the Frenchman finally falter with a wayward smash.

And any thoughts that the Briton might be turning his attention to a week off ahead of the US Open disappeared when he broke again, screaming - this time in delight - after one blistering backhand winner.

Murray broke again to seal the set but it remained hard going, and three break points went begging from 0-40 at the start of the decider as Benneteau showed great fighting spirit.

Another lengthy match finally began to take its toll on the 27-year-old, however, and when Murray moved 0-40 clear again in game four he was not about to waste a second chance.

Murray's fitness levels proved key once again and he powered through the final few games to give the final-set score a misleadingly one-sided look.

"That unbelievable rally, 53 shots or something, that really changed the match for me," said Murray. "Physically he was struggling a little bit after that."

He added: "I served terrible in the first set - six doubles. The ball was blowing all over the place. He obviously played well. It was tricky conditions. I was shanking a lot of balls at the start.

"I was hitting the ball really clean from the back of the court but leaving a lot of balls short so I ended up doing a lot of running, which wasn't really the plan going into the match."

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