Andy Murray and Marin Cilic meet Sunday afternoon in the Cincinnati Masters Final.
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He is shaping up to be a serious contender to claim a second US Open to go with his 2012 triumph, and is playing at a higher level than when he carried off Olympic gold and the US Open four years ago.
The match is to be Cilic’s first Masters 1000 final on his 71st attempt.
Milos Raonic rematch in the Cincinnati Masters semifinals fell flat as the Brit rolled to an easy 6-3, 6-3 win.
The first set saw Murray miss one chance to break Cilic but offer up three to his opponent – two of which were taken – as the Croat surged into a 5-2 lead. “It’s going to come down to a few important points, playing them better, and obviously executing better than I did on my end of things when it comes to my service games than I did today”. “Obviously today didn’t go how I would have wanted”. Among great performances and resounding defeats, the last Grand Slam of the tennis season is also fast approaching. Today I also did a better job of creating opportunities on his serve that I didn’t make count. A third match point arrived after a forehand victor by Murray, but this time, the top seed was determined to close the match and so he did when he hit a volley victor to book his spot in the final.
“Now I’m looking forward to a few days’ rest”.
While Murray was relaxing, Marin Cilic’s rain-delayed clash with Grigor Dimitrov began at half past 11 and ended at around 2am.
At 17 in the world, Pliskova is the lowest-ranked finalist at Cincinnati since 2008, when number 21 Natalie Petrova won the title.
Following that he won the Aegon Championships and Wimbledon before his gruelling four-hour victory over Juan Martin del Potro in the Olympic final.
Murray:”I’m very proud of this week”.
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Following the Australian Open, Murray improved and continued to play a strong game. In the second set, however, the Murray’s serve started to find the correct footing and, having won just 17% of points on his second serve in the first set, he increased it to an incredible 60% in the second. Murray wobbled slightly serving for the match, but eventually found his way out of trouble with a drop volley on his third match point. In the meantime, Tennis World would like to propose the five best matches of the last tennis week!
