After beating Raonic for his second Wimbledon title and getting another Olympic gold medal in Rio de Janeiro, he came to Cincinnati worn out.
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As well as Tomic’s 7-6 (1), 7-6 (5) win over Nishikori, Rafael Nadal was stunned 6-1, 6-3 to Borna Coric while Grigor Dimitrov dispatched second seed Stan Wawrinka 6-4, 6-4.
While Cilic would have less than 12 hours of rest before taking the court for Sunday’s final, the Briton said that he was also feeling the effects of playing a lot of tennis in a short period of time.
But he was second best to the Croat who took his first title of 2016 and his third since the US Open in 2014.
Murray’s 22 matches without defeat has encompassed claiming Queen’s, Wimbledon, Olympic gold and a run to this final in Cincinnati. “I couldn’t get it done today but we’ll keep working to get better”.
“I felt that I played really good tennis today”.
At one point during Wednesday’s match Murray was treated by the trainer for a right shoulder problem.
“This season I won my first grand slam, everything what’s happened in the last months is just incredible”.
Murray is mounting a strong bid to displace Novak Djokovic from the No. 1 ranking.
“When it was said that I wasn’t going to make it worse by playing, I thought: ‘Let’s go for it this week”.
Murray said that his mentality is in a good place just now, and added:”So I’m looking forward to NY for sure”.
The win is Murray’s 22nd win on the bounce, an awesome run that is the longest winning streak of his career. US Open finalist Roberta Vinci stopped Tsvetana Pironkova 7-5, 6-3; seventh seed Svetlana Kuznetsova rolled past Alison Riske in a 3-6, 6-3, 6-1 comeback.
“It’s very important for me to continue on this path, to play this sort of game”, he said. I had some pretty good wins along the way.
“Mentally I’m in a good place just now”. “I’m so happy to have beaten such a tough player”.
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“It all feels unbelievable, 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. He is the lowest-ranked Cincinnati champion since number 17 Carlos Moya in 2002.
