On the court-side, two former champions McEnroe and Ivan Lendl – two-time winners in 1989 and 1990 stood for their wards Raonic and Murray respectively.
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With the tide turning in Murray’s favour, both players must have recalled the Scot’s dramatic fightback from two sets to one down to beat Raonic in the Australia Open semi-finals in January.
“This week I was playing good tennis early on against Anderson and Verdasco, and Gilles yesterday I was playing very confident”.
The tone was set in the very first point as Raonic bounded forward, Murray punched back a pass and the Canadian’s volley dropped into the net. Other than that, Murray is steamrolling through competition and has that look in his eye.
When asked where he could have served to achieve better results against the Murray return game, Raonic replied: “Try to go through him”.
An optimistic challenge merely confirmed Tomic’s error in judgment and he compounded the matter by double-faulting to hand Raonic the crucial break and give up a 3-2 advantage.
A brilliant backhand return victor by the Scot finally ended Raonic’s run of service games, and two games later the Canadian was run ragged as Murray broke again with a forehand deep into the corner. It is the hottest streak in his entire career.
When they played a tough five-setter at the Australian Open this year, Raonic was struggling with injury – no doubt exacerbated by Murray’s ruthless exploitation of it – but he was fully fit here, as he demonstrated with an acrobatic leap and smash to hold for two all. “He was serving great, obviously”.
So Raonic and that serve of his will keep it tight, but I think Murray’s experience and urgency gets him the win here. I hadn’t created any break points. Since then, match completely turned around as Scotsman went on to lose only four games throughout the rest of the encounter. It’s a huge serve so sometimes when he hits the lines you can’t do anything. “I’m feeling pretty good”.
“It’s obviously good preparation to win the event right beforehand, but I still have eight days until my first match at Wimbledon, so there’s time to make things better and there’s also time to mess things up”, he said.
Murray fell behind Milos Raonic, who is coached by John McEnroe, in the first set but ultimately pulls through with a 6-7, 6-4, 6-3 win to seal his place in Queen’s Club history.
“To win here for a fifth time means a lot for me”.
It took a perfectionist to suggest that his best play, once again, had come when cornered.
Murray later revealed Lendl simply needed the toilet, and watched the celebrations from the balcony.
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On the large bottle of champagne placed next to him, Murray added: “I’ll take it home”.
