Except that this time the two old rivals, the bitter foes of the ’80s and ’90s will have to sit on their hands while their charges – Andy Murray and Milos Raonic – do battle for the Aegon Championships this afternoon.
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And he saw it out confidently with some impressive serving to win 6-7, 6-4, 6-3 to make history in west London.
The American legend led the cheering again as the Canadian smashed a forehand victor past a stranded Murray to take the first set in 52 minutes. “I’m going to have some time now, really, first to recover myself and get myself fresh and ready to go, and then also look to improve on other aspects where I think I can do better”.
A win would take Murray past four-time champions Boris Becker, Lleyton Hewitt, Andy Roddick and Roy Emerson.
Murray has lost to the irrepressible Djokovic in the final at the Australian Open and the French Open this year and the Brit is hoping to crack open the huge bottle of champagne he won at Queen’s after claiming a second title at SW19 next month. Soon enough it was 4-3 to Murray as he held and then broke Raonic again for his fourth game in a row. No, not Murray vs. Raonic – Lendl vs. John McEnroe.
But Murray used all his experience to pull himself back into the contest and break Raonic, who hadn’t dropped serve once in the tournament prior to Sunday’s final, twice in quick succession. “There have been many great players who have won here over the years”.
“To win here for a fifth time means a lot to me”. Murray explained: “He said he had to go to the toilet and he watched from up on the balcony”.
American Madison Keys powered to a 6-3, 6-4 win over Barbora Strycova in the Aegon Classic final, only the second grass-court title of her career.
However, a backhand volley into the net from Raonic allowed Murray to climb to the top of the pile and celebrate a winning start to his renewed coaching relationship with Ivan Lendl.
The British No 1 joked: “It is nice of him to stick around for the presentation!” It was only the eighth break point Raonic had faced in this tournament – and the first one taken.
“We spoke about Sunday’s match but more about next week and planning for Wimbledon, on how I’m going to prepare for that, the things that we’re going to be working on”.
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“John was obviously an unbelievable player and a great, great grasscourt player, so I’m sure he’ll help Milos a lot, but I’m happy with my team and we’ll get ready for tomorrow”. At the Halle Open, meanwhile, Florian Mayer denied 19-year-old Alexander Zverev his first tour title when he beat his fellow German in the final. Without doing any arithmetic – i.e adding up the number of matches in every round – can you work out how many matches are there in total?
