Andy Murray has blasted his way on to the Australian Open semi-finals for the third consecutive year, seeing off Japan's Kei Nishikori 6-3 6-3 6-1 on Rod Laver Arena.
The No.4 seeded Scot took just two hours and 12 minutes to get through to the final four where a clash with either top seed Novak Djokovic or No.5 David Ferrer awaits on Friday night.
Having been beaten in the past two finals, once by Roger Federer and once by Djokovic, he is aiming to become the first player since his coach Ivan Lendl 21 years ago to make the men's final here in three consecutive years.
The first set only featured one break of serve from 14 break-point chances, which fell to Murray in the second game, at the end of a 42-shot rally between the two.
Nishikori had a chance to level things in the third game and then again when he raced to 0-40 in the seventh game, but Murray fought back again.
The Japanese No.24 seed saved two set points in the eighth game when trailing 15-40, but it proved only a temporary reprieve as Murray closed the set out to love in the subsequent game.
It was a high pressure match and early in the second set, it seemed neither man could hold serve, with the first three games going against serve.
Murray was the first to tighten things up and allowed just four more points on his serve for the set, breaking Nishikori in the ninth game to make it two sets to love.
The match looked to be slipping away as Murray dropped just one point in the first two games to shoot to a 2-0 lead, and while Nishikori got the break back, Murray kept him to love in the next game to restore his buffer.
Nishikori's resistance, save for a quite remarkable save on match point, was broken, as was his serve in the sixth game, allowing Murray to serve it out, converting on his second match point.
For Nishikori it marks the end of his best ever Grand Slam run and hopefully for him a launch into the top echelon of men's tennis.