Andy Murray began his first-ever Australian Open men’s singles semifinal with the trepidation of a middle-tier performer. He left Rod Laver Arena with not just a victory, but a newfound sense of swagger that could lift him to the very top of his sport.

The fifth-seeded Murray – ranked fourth in the world and poised to climb up the rankings in short order – defeated No. 14 Marin Cilic on Thursday night. The Scotsman who bears Britain’s hopes for Grand Slam glory punched a ticket to his second Major final with a 3-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 triumph in 3 hours and 2 minutes.

This four-set fightback didn’t just give Murray a fatter paycheck and a place in a prime-time spotlight on Sunday night in Melbourne. This come-from-behind conquest has a chance to be remembered as the moment when a talented contender learned how to comport himself in the biggest pressure cookers the sport of tennis can create.

Davis Cup always tests elite tennis players, but that event is fueled by the fires of nationalism. Moreover, Davis Cup also involves a team concept and the safety net of on-court coaching during a match. This leaves the four Majors as the tournaments that most fully expose a tennis player’s soul.

In Australia, France, England, and the United States, the lure of a supremely prestigious individual championship compels the world’s very best ballstrikers to tear each other apart in mortal combat. Physical fitness is essential to this line of work, but so is the realm between the ears. Without the right mentality under the microscope of Major tournament pressure, a perfect tennis body won’t amount to much in the end. This was the reality staring down Andy Murray in the semifinal stage of the 2010 Australian Open.

Murray, one will quickly recall, lost to Cilic in the fourth round of the 2009 U.S. Open. Murray had his chances in a contentious first set, but failed to capitalize. Cilic, a 21-year-old Croatian, made Murray pay dearly in the form of a 7-5, 6-2, 6-2 wipeout that prevented Britain’s shining hope from making even one Major final in all of 2009.

When Murray made the 2008 U.S. Open final, a loss to Roger Federer couldn’t dwarf the emerging sense that the Scotsman was destined for greatness at a very high level. However, when Cilic charged past him in New York, Murray had to wonder if late-round struggles in Big Four events would become a lingering theme of his career. Such a realization represents a bulky form of emotional baggage, the kind of weight that can stifle holistic growth and snuff out a promising tennis journey before it has a chance to blossom.

Knowing that he needed to overcome his past failures at Majors, and knowing that Cilic so powerfully represented those failures over four months ago at the U.S. Open, Murray understandably began this Australian Open semifinal with an all-too-human emotion: fear. While Cilic blasted away from the baseline in the opening set, a tight and anxious Scottish athlete forgot to do the things that made him a top 5 player.

Murray spent the first set (and the first few games of the second) failing to move his feet and hit shots with the aggressive authority witnessed in his demolition of No. 2 Rafael Nadal in Tuesday’s quarterfinals. Seemingly paralyzed at the prospect of losing another big match at a Major, Murray allowed his younger foe to boss him around the court. With Cilic leading by a 6-3, 2-2 score, Murray knew he’d have to summon the strength that great players do when confronted with pressure.

One shot allowed that very process to take place. Given a break point on Cilic’s serve at 2-all in the second set, Murray retrieved a net cord shot by Cilic that bounced in the service box. After Cilic lobbed the Scotsman, Murray pretended to throw up a lob before – at the last instant – clubbing a turnaround forehand winner which zoomed past his stunned Croatian opponent.

Murray broke for a 3-2 lead, but more significantly, he broke through between the ears. After that highlight-reel display, Murray found the confidence that was missing in the first 13 games of the match. The footwork returned to form, the groundstrokes became more penetrating, and untimely errors decreased. With Cilic having played two straight five-set marathons before reaching his first-ever Major semifinal, Murray knew that as long as he enjoyed a neutral position in extended rallies, the odds suggested that his foe would falter.

That’s exactly what happened, as Murray cruised through the last three sets on serve and coasted to a 6-2 fourth set which wrapped up the match. The same Andy Murray who played the first 13 games with a raw bundle of nerves had authored the kind of turnaround that championship-caliber competitors manage to produce. Murray walked off the court with an attitude and a demeanor which suggested that a river had been safely navigated, a threshold successfully crossed. So timid at the start of this Cilic-based challenge, Murray had become a low-key, all-business tennis pro when the smoke had cleared in Melbourne.

The Andy Murray who began Thursday night’s fateful match will continue to lose in the fourth rounds of Majors. However, that’s not the Andy Murray who advanced to the Australian Open finals. As long as the good version of this ballyhooed Brit shows up on Sunday, a nation starved for a tennis champion – the first in Britian since Fred Perry in 1936 – will have a good chance to rediscover what it feels like to support a winner of the highest order.

All that’s left for Mr. Murray is to play the entirety of Sunday’s match with the flinty determination that mowed down Marin Cilic in Australia.

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