Andy Murray’s long winning streak has ended with defeat by Marin Cilic in the final of the Cincinnati Masters.
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Murray, whose 50th win of the year had come in the semi-final against Milos Raonic, was broken twice in the first set and, despite breaking back, fell behind.
The second set remained level through ten games but a 95 miles per hour victor from Cilic gave him his fifth break point of the eleventh game and he converted on the next point when Murray netted a forehand.
“There is still one match to go and I will not think yet about this”, Australian Open victor Kerber said after reaching her second final at the venue.
Murray has had a hectic two weeks, taking to the courts in Cincinnati immediately after his run to singles gold in Rio.
He’s around a [1.22] chance today and for me the best value wager here is to side with a correct score wager in set one.
“It all feels fantastic, I’m seeing all the hard work of the last few years paying off”, said Kerber, 28, who beat Williams in the final of the Australian Open but lost to her at the same stage at Wimbledon.
“Oh, I feeled the arm too exhausted”.
It was a run which included a Queen’s title, his second Wimbledon championship and a second Olympic gold medal.
Former US Open victor Cilic ended Briton Murray’s 22-match winning streak with a straight-sets win on Sunday and jumped up five places in the rankings to ninth. I was hitting a lot of big serves in important points and I was definitely very mentally strong in that second set.
That and Murray fatigue are the reasons to be backing Cilic today, with all the numbers favouring the Scot, who holds serve 10% more often than Cilic in this match-up.
“The wrist is still the same; the wrist is still bothering me but is a process that I need to pass and a process that I need to go through”, he said.
The British top seed, gearing up for the U.S. Open in nine days, will face 2014 U.S. Open champion Marin Cilic of Croatia in the final.
The win strengthens Murray’s bid to displace Novak Djokovic from the number one ranking. “I have to focus on a match against a tough opponent”. “I’m looking forward to it”.
“I really didn’t expect to be here” said Murray. “I feel like I took that all in and adapted well”, Raonic told the ATP Tour Web site.
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“I felt that I played really, really high quality tennis”.
