Murray finds winning touch as Roddick heads to another Kooyong

With Melbourne temperatures at a toasty 41 degrees, Murray, who felt his jet lag in a loss 24 hours earlier, turned his fortunes around in just over two hours against the Croatian.

 The 20-year-old credited his off-season work for helping him along. "I spent seven weeks preparing," said the winner of his season-opening event last week in Doha. "Four of those were in Florida."

   "It's much better than training at home indoors," the world number nine said. "There more humidity in Florida than here."

   Murray said he was pleased with his form ahead of the Australian Open, which begins Monday: "I've never been more content before a slam. I feel good. I've trained hard and prepared really well."

   The Scot saw some earlier trouble, however, in the eight-man, round-robin tournament, losing the first set in a tiebreaker to Ljubicic, who was beaten by Andy Roddick Wednesday.

 Roddick revved up his Grand Slam preparations by reaching a fourth-straight final at the tune-up for the Australian Open.

 "It was hot and windy - we got both today," Roddick said. "I concentrated well as you don't want to stay out there for so long.

 "I want matches this week. I want to make sure that I'm playing as well as possible before the Open."

   Roddick is to face one of a pair of former Melborne finalists, Marcos Baghdatis and Fernando Gonzalez, in Saturday's final.

 In the wake of withdrawals by Roger Federer and Tommy Haas plus back spasms that forced David Nalbandian to pull out Wednesday, organisers had to make another change Thursday.

 Nikolay Davydenko exhausted himself in training at Melbourne Park and was replaced for his match against Australian Brydan Klein - Nalbandian's substitute - by American Vince Spadea.

 Officials said they were hoping that Federer might feel the need for a practice match by Saturday as he heads into his Open title defence after pulling from Kooyong with a stomach ailment.

By Bill Scott, dpa