Murray, who was aiming to reach his first final at Roland Garros, was involved in a number of gruelling rallies in the first set but managed to secure the opener 6-4. The world no. 4 Wawrinka however, has won the last three matches over Murray in a period dating back to 2013.
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“I feel like you have to be still mentally alive, and obviously you need to be physically alive and ready for everything”, said the world number one, who will be looking to draw level with Steffi Graf’s professional era record of 22 majors.
Andy Murray reaches the French Open final for the first time following a four-set win over Stanislas Wawrinka.
“I had to play my best tennis on some points”, Djokovic said. “He is a tough guy to break when he’s serving well”.
Breaking his claycourt jinx against the Swiss, second seed Murray also becomes the first Briton to contest the Roland Garros crown since the 1930s – a landmark he did not think he would achieve.
“It was one of the better matches that I have played on clay throughout my career. I finished the match extremely well, I think”. Murray fell behind 3-1 in the opening frame tiebreaks.
This will be the 16th meeting between Murray and Wawrinka, a quarter-final victor over surprise contender, Albert Ramos Vinolas.
The Scottish star, a semi-finalists in 2011, 2014 and 2015, has never reached the final two in Roland Garros but having overcome local favourite Richard Gasquet confidence will be high in the Murray camp. Murray lost the first set and needed a tie-break in the second however he eventually found his rhythm to comfortably win the final two sets and set up a meeting with Wawrinka.
The Scot moved higher up the court as he began to anticipate his opponent’s groundstrokes, breaking to lead 2-1 and then again for 4-1, sealing the latter game when he picked a crosscourt backhand that he had time to return with a clean backhand victor down the line.
Wawrinka then played a dismal service game to allow Murray to pull 5-2 clear and it was all over shortly after that.
But having survived those scares, Murray went into full throttle mode to easily defuse the thunderbolt serves of Ivo Karlovic and John Isner before showing off his full array of tricks to subdue holder Stan Wawrinka in Friday’s semi-final.
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In all, Murray converted five of 15 break points against his opponent’s one from five.
