Andy Murray reached his second successive Wimbledon final on Friday,
beating Poland’s Jerzy Janowicz under the Centre Court roof.
In
the dramatic semi-final encounter, the proceedings had to be brought to
a halt after the third set because of fading light. Murray wasn’t happy
about the decision, but returned to complete a 6-7 (2-7), 6-4, 6-4, 6-3
victory.
“It’s a tough situation, there was about 45 minutes of daylight left,” Murray told BBC Sport of the decision to close the roof.
“It’s
an outdoor event and we should play as much outdoors as we can. And I’d
won five games in a row. I took a shower, spoke to the guys and got
back to work.”
The 26-year-old second seed will play Serb Novak
Djokovic for the title on Sunday as Britain wait to end the 77-year wait
for a men’s singles champion.
“Novak and Del Potro played an
incredible match, Novak moved so well. I’ve only played him on grass
here at the Olympic so I’ll take that into the Sunday,” said the Olympic
Gold medalist on the prospect of Sunday’s final Murray-Djokovic
face-off.
Murray won Djokovic and Roger Federer on his way to becoming the
first British man to win a singles tournament at Wimbledon since 1936
for Team GB and, was a Wimbledon proper finalist same year but lost to
the Swiss world number three.
The Briton had to wait until (7:19
GMT+1) to fire down the first serve of his semi-final encounter with the
Pole, because Djokovic took nearly five hours to beat Juan-Martin del
Potro in a thrilling encounter of the first semi-final.
The
late start would prove significant a little over two hours later, after
Murray raced through five straight games to win the third set and take
control of a match that had been slipping away.
Two hours and
eleven minutes later, tournament referee Andrew Jarret arrived on court
to announce the roof would be brought across because of fading light.
He
would return to put paid to 22-year-old Janowicz’s ambition of making
his first Grand Slam final, but not without struggling to contain the
Pole in the early stages.
“It was a very tough match and completely different from any other match I’ve had here this year,” Murray said.
“He’s talented and unpredictable, he has huge serves, which give you very little rhythm to come back at him.”
Janowicz showed no sign of nerves early on as he saved one break point and two set points with a huge second serves.
The
6ft 8in tall Pole looked remarkably composed in the opening 50 minutes
of the first set which he won when Murray double faulted in the
tie-break.
Murray leveled up after one hour 33 minutes into the game as Janowicz soon appeared to be giving in.
Murray
took the third set to take a two sets to one lead and under the closed
roof of Centre Court came back to finish off the contest by the time two
double faults in a row by the Pole brought up match point for him, and
the second seed cracked a forehand return winner to keep his Wimbledon
title hopes alive
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