It seems like it took forever, but he’s finally done it. Andy Murray makes his first clay court final in a rain-affected tournament in Munich, Germany. The ATP 250 BMW Open had lost a whole day’s play on Friday. This meant that with a whole day of play washed out, it was going to be a long slog for the potential finalists to get there. All four quarter-finals took place back to back, starting with Andy Murray vs Lukas Rosol on centre court with Roberto Bautista Agut vs Victor Estrella Burgos on court 1. Interestingly, both Andy and Roberto lost their respective first sets to the exact same score before they then both came back to win the next 2 sets (this time with very different scorelines). In the match between Andy and Rosol there was definite tension in the air, as at the changeover after the first set Rosol was seen to bump into Andy, who promptly complained to the umpire and the tournament referee about this. With the score at 1-1 Rosol appeared to swear at Murray who then retorted with “No one likes you on tour”; this exchange though did seem to fire up Andy who went on to win the next 2 sets with relative ease.
In the other side of the draw we had the quarter-finals between Philipp Kohlschreiber and David Goffin and the all-Austrian clash with Dominic Theim and Gerald Melzer. Each match also went the full distance, though this time only in one of the matches did the player who lost the first set go on to win the match, as Melzer won his on a tight tiebreak. This would lead to the semi-final lineup of Murray vs Bautista Agut and Kohlschreiber vs Melzer all to be played Saturday because of the total wash out of Friday putting everything behind.
In the first semi-final, Murray vs Bautista Agut, the top seed started very slowly but at 0-3 0-40 down he turned that right around and won the next 5 games before serving out the first set comfortably. Murray had little difficulty in closing this match out in straight sets, which means that Andy Murray makes his first clay court final on the ATP tour; he has reached semi-finals before on clay, but never before made a final. In the next semi-final between Kohlschrieber & Melzer it was the unseeded qualifier who started so well that it seemed there could have been an upset on the cards; however Kohlschrieber, as the only remaining seed in that side of the draw, wouldn’t let this go without a fight and ultimately came out on top.
Whilst this semi-final was ongoing, Murray was back on court again, in the doubles semi-final with Jean-Julien Rojer. The pair had made astonishing progress for a scratch doubles pairing (Rojer’s regular partner is out through injury), barely being troubled en route to the semi-final. Saturday, though, they were facing the top seeds and this proved just a step too far for them, although this being his third match on court you could not blame Murray for tiredness. Andy Murray now has less than 24 hours to recover for his first ever clay court final before he heads over to Madrid for the Madrid Masters.
In Istanbul, Roger Federer yet again had to fight for his win over 3 sets as the top seed dropped the first set on his way to the final in this inaugural event. He will face Pablo Cuevas in the final as the third seed needed only a straight sets win over Grigor Dimitrov to reach the final.
Main Photo
