Andy Murray will get another chance to end a near 75-year winless streak for British men in Grand Slam singles tournaments after beating Spain’s David Ferrer 4-6, 7-6 (2), 6-1, 7-6 (2) yesterday to reach the Australian Open final.
The semi-final win put Murray into tomorrow’s final against Novak Djokovic of Serbia, the 2008 champion who holds a 4-3 edge in head-to-head matches. Murray, however, has won the last three.
No British male has won a Grand Slam singles title since Fred Perry in 1936 — more than 270 Grand Slam tournaments ago. The drought endured through British hopes including Tim Henman and most recently by Murray in last year’s straight-set loss to Roger Federer at Melbourne Park.
Photo: Reuters
Federer is gone from this tournament, beaten by Djokovic in the semi-finals. Top-ranked Rafael Nadal, who was trying to win his fourth straight Grand Slam tournament, is gone too. He was hobbled by a thigh injury in his quarter-final loss to Ferrer.
Last night’s semi-final was filled with long rallies and plenty of booming forehands that just cleared the net. Murray mixed it up enough at times that his looping lob on break point at 4-1 in the third set went high over seventh-seeded Ferrer’s head, allowing the Spaniard to only watch as the ball bounced meters inside the line.
“I think everyone has problems at this stage of the tournament and both of us did a lot of running tonight, it was a pretty physical match,” Murray said.
“My body was feeling it a bit towards the end and I’m going to jump into the ice bath now and try to recover properly,” he said.
Ferrer won the first set by breaking Murray’s serve in the 10th game, and had a set point to go up 2-0 in the second. However, Murray saved it and leveled at 5-5. The two exchanged service breaks in the next two games to send the second set to a tiebreaker, in which Murray led 6-0 and easily prevailed.
“I think towards the end of the second set I started going for my shots more ... I was missing a lot earlier,” Murray said. “I changed my string tension and managed to come through.”
Ferrer rued his missed opportunities, but said he couldn’t have done any more.
“I had my chance in the set point in the second set, but in the important moments he served really well,” Ferrer said. “In the tiebreak, maybe he start better than me.”
“Andy in important moments serve better than me. So I can’t do nothing more. I fight a lot. I tried my best game all the time, but Andy’s a very, very great player,” he said.
Tomorrow’s title match will be the British fifth seed’s third Grand Slam final overall.
“In the first Slam final I played against Federer [2008 US Open], I didn’t know what was going on, it went so quick. And last year was better than before, and I hope this one going to be better than last year,” Murray said.
The Scot says he and Djokovic are good friends and often train together.
“I think experience-wise we are similar,” Murray said. “There won’t be any secrets with our games but it’s going to be a brutal match.”
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