Tomas Berdych, coachless and without a grass court win to his name ahead of The Championships, is through to the Wimbledon semi-finals for the second time after ending the run of France’s Lucas Pouille, who had never won a tour match on grass before arriving at SW19.

The No.10 seed, who beat Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer to reach the 2010 final before losing to Rafael Nadal, overcame a stuttering start to accelerate past the first-time Grand Slam quarter-finalist 7-6(4), 6-3, 6-2 on a balmy afternoon on No.1 Court.

No doubt Berdych will be glad to have wrapped things up inside two hours, particularly given his two-day, five-set tussle with fellow Czech Jiri Vesely in the fourth round.

He has now spent almost 13 and a half hours on court to reach the semi-finals – almost two and a half hours longer than opponent Murray.

But Berdych was already looking forward to a well-earned day off while the No.2 seed was entrenched in the second set of his five-set, four-hour battle with Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

Pouille had just two match wins to his name at the majors before arriving at The Championships – both first-round victories on home clay at the French Open – but showed no signs of nerves in his first quarter-final appearance, immediately recovering an early break to take the opening set to a tie-break.

But having neutralised Berdych’s powerful game, the 22-year-old Frenchman left himself too much to do after slipping 5-1 down to drop the first set.

“At the beginning I was finding the right rhythm because obviously the opponent before was completely different game style,” Berdych said. “Everything was quite different, so just trying to find the rhythm back again, which I did finally in the end of the first set.

“From then on, everything was fine – I was able to dictate the game, play what I wanted. Afterwards, it was pretty straightforward.”

And when Berdych opened up a 3-0 lead early in the second set the Czech started playing with greater confidence, unleashing his huge forehand time and again to force the Frenchman onto the back foot.

Berdych saw a match point come and go at 5-1 in the third but made no mistake in the next game, closing out victory in one hour, 55 minutes with a hold to love to set up his 15th career showdown with Murray, who holds an 8-6 head-to-head lead against the 30-year-old.

Murray has won his last four encounters with world No.9 Berdych, including a feisty four-set affair at the same stage of the 2015 Australian Open.  Back then the appearance of Murray’s former practice partner Dani Vallverdu in Berdych’s camp added an extra layer of intrigue to the match; on Friday Ivan Lendl’s return to Murray’s team in the lead-up to The Championships will no doubt give an edge to the duo’s first meeting on grass.

“I approach Ivan when he stopped with Andy the first time,” Berdych confirmed. “He basically said that he doesn't have the time and he didn't want to be involved in tennis. Then he came back to Andy. So that's how it is.”