The 13th seed’s movement and volleying appears to have gone up several gears and, allied to his at-times unplayable serve, the challenge facing 7/20 favourite Murray is clear.
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The Canadian won three of the pair’s first four meetings, but Murray has claimed the last two.
“I have certain aspects that I would like to manipulate and use my game in, and I’m sure he’s going to try to do a lot of different things, too”, Raonic said, reports the Irish Examiner.
Andy Murray played David Ferrer in the quarter-final match. I think the mentality we’ve got and the chemistry we seem to have struck up these last couple of weeks will bode well for us. The other is Eugenie Bouchard of Westmount, Que., who did it in 2014.
She had never been beyond the fourth round at a Slam before with her exploits Wednesday matching fellow Brits Virginia Wade (who won the title in 1972) and Sue Barker (1975 and 1977) in making the Melbourne semis.
Raonic beat Murray on clay in Barcelona in 2012 and they split their hardcourt matches that year at the U.S. Open and in Japan.
“We know that right now it’s a little bit complicated for him, with much to handle”, Mauresmo told British newspapers.
“I’m not particularly proud of the way I’ve handled myself on the court”, he said, “and I don’t think that my behaviour on the court has been impeccable”. Raonic made his only previous major semifinal in the same tournament, losing to Roger Federer. But in the semifinal stage, Murray needs all the focus to overcome a surging Raonic, who needed four sets to fend off France’s Gael Monfils 6-3 3-6 6-3 6-4. The Canadian also made his move on Monfils’ serve in the fifth game, being gifted a break point courtesy of a Monfils double fault which he converted at the net.
“Yeah, that’s positive”, Murray said of the independent review. “But I feel he’s pretty strong considering that because he’s going through many different emotional states and he still beats Ferrer after a huge fight”.
But I was aware of that before the match, so psychologically I did not allow myself to have big oscillations. Now healthy and with a new coach in Carlos Moya on board, Raonic is positively on fire to begin this year. While Sears recovered sufficiently to be able to travel home to England, Murray admitted after his fourth-round win over Bernard Tomic that he had considered withdrawing from the event.
After all the dramas and worries of the past few days, he was through to the semi-finals and within touching distance of yet another final in Melbourne Park.
That is where the No. 2 seed will have an obvious edge over his underdog opponent on Friday, even though Raonic has improved his movement and baseline game.
“This was ideal for me”.
As part of its investigation, BuzzFeed also devised an algorithm to identify players it said had been regularly involved in matches with suspicious betting patterns.
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“I played him indoors in Paris and at the O2, and won”, Murray said. In the final he lost in straight sets to Novak Djokovic, who had put out defending champion Federer in the semis.
