“It’s very fortunate for me that he’s allowed me to come into his environment and share stuff with his team, stay with him”, said the Englishman.
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With 12 aces and 30/35 first serves in the match, the No9-ranked Raonic will be a formidable force for Murray, too, especially with his determination also to improve his net game and his movement. He could, though, not hold back the Murray serving floodgates, and just a minute short of two hours, he fired his 13th and 14th aces of the match to reach yet another final on the courts he loves nearly as much as Wimbledon’s, 6-3.
He landed the first blow with a powerful crosscourt forehand that left Cilic reeling and secured a break in the third game.
Murray broke again to take the first set, but the Scot was twice down a break in the second. Having recovered from 0-40 down in the following game he served out to level the match.
Edmund is now ranked at 85 in the world but his impressive performances, including a first-round defeat of eighth seed Gilles Simon, indicate a bright future.
The 21-year-old Edmund took a 3-1 lead in the second set, and although Murray immediately broke back he fell heavily in the next game and dropped his serve.
“It’s patterns of play that work well for me and in certain matches as well”.
“These are some of the best players of all-time so if I can do better than them, that’s obviously a good sign”.
“On the grass courts when you are pushed that way, if you can hit the ball clean and big cross-court, you can rush your opponent a little bit. I got a bit of success with that today”.
Tomic had one opportunity to get back into contention when he held a break point for 4-4 but Raonic held off the challenge and went on to reach his third final of the year.
Lendl split from Murray in March 2014 after helping the Scot claim Olympic gold, the 2012 US Open title and 2013 Wimbledon crown, and the duo reunited ahead of the Aegon Championships.
Roger Federer must wait another year to add to his eight titles at the Gerry Weber Open, after slipping to semi-final defeat to teenager Alexander Zverev.
However, as in his wins over Bedene and Nicolas Mahut, Murray was some way short of his best and there was an immediate break back by Edmund, who appeared unperturbed by being unexpectedly awoken in the early hours of Friday to take delivery of a washing machine in his new flat.
Mayer eased past Dominic Thiem 6-3 6-4 in just 66 minutes to book his place in the final and set up an all-German silverware battle.
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Madison Keys will break into the world’s top 10 following her 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 victory over Carla Suarez Navarro in the semi-finals of the Aegon Classic at Edgbaston. In tomorrow’s final Keys will face the Czech Republic’s Barbora Strycova, who beat Coco Vandeweghe 2-6, 6-4, 6-3.
