Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic set up a shootout for both the ATP World Tour Finals title and the year-end No. 1 ranking on Saturday.
The world’s top two players had contrasting wins in the semi-finals at the O2 Arena in London, with Murray surviving a match point to beat Milos Raonic 5-7, 7-6 (7/5), 7-6 (11/9) in 3 hours, 38 minutes, the longest ever three-setter at the ATP World Tour Finals.
Djokovic needed just 66 minutes to dispatch Kei Nishikori 6-1, 6-1.
Photo: AFP
Murray arrived at the tournament simply needing to do better than Djokovic to finish the year as the world No. 1, a position he has held since winning the Paris Masters two weeks ago.
Now, that means winning the final.
“This has never happened in the history of tennis,” Djokovic said of the winner-takes-all match. “I’m privileged to be part of the history. This is one of the biggest matches we will ever play against each other.”
Photo: Reuters
Djokovic might just be in the better shape after overwhelming Nishikori, who held his serve only once all match.
“I pretty much executed everything I tactically planned to do,” Djokovic said. “My level had been going in the right direction. I’m very glad I get to experience this feeling on the court. Now it’s coming up to the last match of the year, the match everybody anticipated.”
After squandering chances while serving for the match twice in the final set, Murray converted on his fourth match point during the tiebreaker to finally come through.
“It was unbelievably tough,” Murray said. “I had to fight very, very hard. Being broken twice serving for the match was frustrating. It was one of the harder matches I’ve played indoors. They are never this long.”
Murray had won all six of his meetings with Raonic this year, including a straight-sets victory in the Wimbledon final.
Murray just needs one last push at the end of a stunning second half to the year, when he won Wimbledon and the Olympics, before topping the rankings for the first time.
“I’m tired,” Murray said. “I’ve played so much tennis the last few months. I’ll just give my best effort tomorrow. It’s going to be tough, obviously, but I’ll give my best shot.”
“I don’t remember the moment, but ever since I was a kid, that’s the first thing I loved,” two-time NBA All-Star Isaiah Thomas said of his lifelong romance with basketball. However, that journey unfolded against the limitations of his size in a game where height often dictates opportunity — a reality he confronted throughout his career. At 175cm, Thomas is less than 2cm taller than the average Taiwanese adult male, while NBA players during his career stood at about 200cm on average. Compared with the NBA’s average career length of less than five years, Thomas’ 13-season career stands out as
Hans Niemann declares he would become a “stone cold killer” in a Netflix documentary released on Tuesday about his feud with five-time classical world champion Magnus Carlsen, a pledge that injects new edge into the lingering fallout from the cheating scandal that shook elite chess. “I’m gonna be a stone cold killer the rest of my life,” the US’ Niemann says in the film. “I’m going to become the best player in the world, and no one is going to believe that now, but this clip will play over and over again in 10 years — just wait.” “I just
Dakar and Rabat have longstanding ties, but relations have been strained since the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) final, which Senegal won in mid-January before being stripped of the title, which was transferred to Morocco. Now, the AFCON trophy is something of a thorn in the two countries’ sides. On Rue Mohamed V, the street where Moroccan vendors are based in the Senegalese capital, a police van is parked. “The police have been on high alert since the Confederation of African Football [CAF] decided to award the title to Morocco, but there have been no incidents,” a local resident said.
Top seeded Jessica Pegula on Friday once again fought back from a set down to reach the WTA Charleston Open semi-finals with a 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 win against Russia’s Diana Shnaider. Defending champion Pegula has lost the first set in all three of her matches at the tournament so far, but again dug deep to maintain her hopes of retaining the title. The world No. 5 from the US took 2 hours, 10 minutes to defeat 19th-ranked Shnaider, relying on a formidable service game that included eight aces. Shnaider battled well in the first two sets and broke early for a 2-0 lead
RSS