The 94-minute victory for the 27-year-old Croatian marked a career breakthrough as he earned his first Masters title on his 71st career attempt.
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Murray said, after his match: “I’m not going to be fresher than Marin or Grigor”. “I got to obviously serve much better than I did today”.
Johnson will take on unseeded Dimitrov, while Croatian teenager Coric tests his skills against his countryman Marin Cilic, a 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 victor over Tomas Berdych in the late-night match at the Lindner Family Tennis Center.
Australian Open victor Angelique Kerber, meanwhile, squandered the chance to end Serena Williams’ 183-week reign as women’s world No1 as she lost the Cincinnati Open final to Czech Karolina Pliskova.
With Serena Williams absent from the tournament a win for Kerber would have seen her replace the American – number one in the world since February 2013 – at the top of the rankings.
Third-seeded Spaniard Rafa Nadal, victor of gold in the Olympic men’s doubles, avenged a defeat to Pablo Cuevas in February with a 6-1 7-6 (4) win over the Uruguayan. Cilic said: “This week has been unbelievable for me”.
The Croat, who split with coach Goran Ivanisevic earlier this year, had only won two ATP 250 titles since then, but this victory suggests he could be a force to be reckoned with in NY.
Murray has won 11 of 13 matches against 12th seed Cilic.
“The match was not as easy as the score looked”.
“I knew that coming straight from the Olympics I was going to be exhausted. I’ve played a lot of tennis but it’s also the ball change”.
The Scotsman had two match points, but he couldn’t convert them as he did his first double fault of the match to force a deuce.
– Dodig/Melo became the first team to win the Rogers Cup and the Western & Southern Open back-to-back since Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan did it in 2010.
Olympic gold medallist Murray crucially held in the fifth game, having to save two break points to that moment, to eventually break the Canadian again and win the set.
Raonic said he had just spent 10 days in NY working with John McEnroe.
“Because I’ve won a lot the last few months, keeping the matches shorter is something that has been good, especially this week for sure. I’m trying to enjoy it”, she said. Murray is now on a 22 match win streak that started all the way back at Queens.
Nadal will now hit the practice courts before heading to the US Open that commences from August 29.
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Murray will be playing in his seventh straight final of the season after winning his 22nd consecutive match.
