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Andy Murray reached the Cincinnati Masters final by getting past Mardy Fish and Giles Simon in the semifinal and quarterfinal respectively.
Both the matches were straight set victories for the Brit World no.4 as he used his superior returning abilities and improved fitness to comfortably reach the finals following the first round exit at last week’s Montreal Masters.While Simon was put away 6-3, 6-3, the match with Fish was settled 6-3, 7-6(8)
Against Simon, Murray fired 8 aces and had a first serve rate of 64%. His serve was broken once out of a total of 4 chances. Simon was broken 4 times in the match out of a total of 11 chances, thrice in the 1st set and once in the 2nd set. Murray improved to a lifetime record of 7-1 against Simon
Against Fish, Murray started off well with some solid serving and with aces clocking the 135 mph mark. He became the first player to break Fish all week and served out the first set with a measure of ease.The 2 players broke each other thrice in the 2nd set as they struggled with their serves. But, somehow they managed to force a tie-break where Murray served better and sealed the tie on his 3rd match point at 9-8 in the tie-breaker. Fish had 33 unforced errors while Murray had 18 against his name.
Fish had won his past 3 matches with Murray but Murray couldn’t be denied this time as he clocked up the 300th win of his career. Murray needed 2hrs and 18 mins to progress to the final where he will be meeting familiar nemesis and world no.1 Novak Djokovic.
Djokovic on the other hand had a stroke of luck against Tomas Berdych in the semifinal as Tomas retired after losing the first set 7-5, due to a shoulder problem. Novak was trailing 3-5 and he himself was having some problems with his serving arm in his quarterfinal win over Gael Monfils.
In the quarterfinals against Monfils, Djokovic needed 2hrs 33 mins to post a 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 win. Last week in the same stage at Montreal, Novak butchered the very same Monfils.
Monfils fired 12 aces in all. He broke Novak twice in the first set while he himself saved 5 break points to win the set 6-3. In the second set Monfils was broken twice while Novak lost serve once. Novak served well and attacked Monfils’ second serves to seal the set. In the third set, Novak continued to serve well and attacked Monfils’ 2nd serves. Novak didn’t face a single break point while he broke Monfils twice to close out the match.
So, both Djokovic and Murray have hardly had much trouble other than the odd set or two to reach the finals of the final tune-up event before the US Open. Novak will start as the overwhelming favorite while Murray will use his underdog status to good effect and probably have nothing to lose.
May the best man win …
