Raonic posted a simple message on Twitter – “I am by no means done yet” – as he prepared to face down not only a grand slam final regular in Murray, but a Centre Court crowd who will be firmly behind the home player.
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Raonic took the first set from Federer in an impressive 6-3 effort, but with Federer winning the next two sets in a 7-3 tiebreaker and then 6-4, it looked like a familiar story was about to play out.
However, this time around the second-seeded Murray is listed as a large -400 favorite (bet $400 to win $100) to win against sixth-seeded Canadian Milos Raonic at sportsbooks monitored by Odds Shark. That’s the goal. But, yeah, there’s a lot of people have helped get me into this situation.
Berdych was one of Murray’s most hard opponents earlier in his career and won six of their first 10 meetings but the Scot has since chalked up four successive victories, losing only one set. He’s played very well on the grass this year and has earned his right to the final by beating one of the best, if not the best player, ever at this event.
The 34-year-old calling for the trainer once in a match is rare enough, but he did it twice after the fourth set ended.
McEnroe hailed Raonic’s all-round game. I never take this for granted.’ About the final against Raonic, Murray said: ‘Milos is a very tough opponent. “To make a Wimbledon final is a good achievement – but I’ve got one more to go on Sunday (Monday NZT)”.
Much will be made of the battle going on off the court as well as on it, with Murray back working with Ivan Lendl, the coach who guided him to his two slam titles, and Raonic now being helped by John McEnroe. The only other Canadian to get this far was Eugenie Bouchard, the women’s runner-up at Wimbledon in 2014.
“Andy is one of the best in eliminating this big weapon of the opponent”, said Berdych.
He believes he can pull off a shock tomorrow in his first Grand Slam final and revealed he’d told Murray he thought they’d be meeting in the Wimbledon Final. He shares the mark with Pete Sampras and 1880s player William Renshaw at seven apiece.
Seven-time champion Roger Federer escaped at Wimbledon on Wednesday against a tall, big-serving foe.
Canada’s Milos Raonic celebrates winning the fourth set against Switzerland’s Roger Federer during their men’s semi-final match at the 2016 Wimbledon Championships at The All England Lawn Tennis Club in Wimbledon, southwest London, on July 8, 2016.
Federer, who had surgery on his left knee in January, resumed the game and didn’t show any outward sign of injury.
But at 40-15, Federer hit two double faults to bring it to deuce.
That break put Raonic in firm control, and he stayed on top the rest of the set and served out the match at love.
Raonic said McEnroe has urged him to ” try to get it out of you on court and leave it all out there”, and the approach has paid off.
Murray will hope it is third time lucky this year after losing the Australian and French Open finals to Novak Djokovic.
He’s the youngest Wimbledon finalist since Murray reached the title match in 2012 at the same age.
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Maybe this time Federer ran out of steam, forced to play 10 sets in his last two matches, including a quarterfinal comeback from two sets down against Marin Cilic on Wednesday. “That was one of the things that was really beneficial for the way we’ve gone about things”, he explained.
