Murray gets walkover, Ward stuns champ Querrey

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LONDON: Andy Murray reached the Queen's semi-finals on Friday after his last-eight opponent Marin Cilic was forced out by injury, while British wildcard James Ward stunned reigning champion Sam Querrey.

Murray has been struggling with ankle ligament damage since the French Open, but it was Cilic who was unable to recover from his own ankle injury just hours before the start of their match at the Wimbledon warm-up event in west London.

World number four Murray will now have some extra time to rest his injury ahead of his last four-clash against either Andy Roddick or Fernando Verdasco on Saturday.

Murray could be joined in the semi-finals by compatriot Ward as the unheralded British number two ended Sam Querrey's reign as the king of Queen's.

World number 216 Ward won the final set of their rain-delayed third-round match to clinch a shock 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory.

Ward had just levelled the tie at one set all in the gloom on Thursday when play was suspended due to bad light.

But the 24-year-old held his nerve overnight and piled the pressure on Querrey when play finally resumed after a 90-minute delay on Friday.

A tight deciding set swung Ward's way when he broke the American 13th seed in the seventh game to take a 4-3 lead.

Ward, who revealed after his surprise win over Swiss fourth seed Stanislas Wawrinka in the second round that he is trained by a former cage fighter, just had to hold serve twice to complete his latest giant-killing.

Querrey staved off one match point and then had a break point of his own, but Ward kept cool to earn a second match point, which he converted to the delight of the crowd.

There was little time for Ward to celebrate one of the best results of his career, however, as the son of a London taxi driver was due to return to action for his quarter-final clash with France's Adrian Mannarino later on Friday.