The win puts Murray into his third Cincinnati final after titles in 2008 and 2011 and ups his career-best win streak to 22. But this week has been hard for me coming from Rio. After losing the first set and unable to find his forehand, it looked as if it would be Dimitrov moving on to face Murray. Both players remained steady as Raonic held to be three games all, followed by another solid hold from the Scotsman that ended up in an unbelievable point when the top seed hit an impressive passing shot to be 4-3. However, both times the world number 14 managed to fight back and break the Dimitrov serve right away.
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Cilic has reached a first Masters 1000 final on his 71st attempt.
It took Cilic an hour and 34 minutes to down the top seed, who was perhaps feeling the effects of his Rio Olympics exploits. His last loss was in the final of Roland Garros to Novak Djokovic.
Murray leads Cilic by 11-2 in their FedEx ATP Head2Head singles matchup, with the Scot winning their last two meetings, most recently in the semifinal of the AEGON Championships this year.
Shunning the effects of jet lag, he beat Juan Monaco, Kevin Anderson, Bernard Tomic and Milos Raonic without too much trouble to set up a final showdown with Marin Cilic on Sunday.
Kerber and third seed Halep – victor of her last 13 matches – were delayed an hour by rain and then interrupted for 30 minutes.
The Canadian, despite sending down three aces in the final set, had no real answer to Murray’s clinical counter-punching and the match was over inside an hour and 30 minutes. “Go I’ll go out there and give it a good go tomorrow and get a few days break before getting ready for NY”.
Andy Murray’s bid for a third Western and Southern Open title remains on track after seeing off Kevin Anderson in the third round. In 2014 he got through Berdych, Federer, and Nishikori on his way to his first major title.
Cincinnati is only Cilic’s second title since winning the US Open two years ago.
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On the victory, the Dunblane ace said: “I knew that coming straight from the Olympics I was going to be exhausted, but I’ve still managed to win”.
