History In The Making

So Andy Murray has earned his second crack at a Wimbledon final, along with the chance to make history of becoming the first British male to win the prestigious event in 77 years.

His route through the tournament may not have crossed with the familiar big names of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal; however that is to take nothing away from the Brit’s exceptional achievement over the past fortnight where at times he has had to battle harder than ever.

Murray marches through to the Wimbledon final

Murray’s semi final opponent was by no means a small task, 6 foot 8 to be precise. The giant Pole Jerzy Janowitcz could be a match for anyone in Wimbledon’s to come, but for this year at least Murray possessed enough experience and quality to overcome his huge task.  

Only 22 years old Janowicz has made his big burst onto the tennis scene in the past year reaching number 22 in the world, with his height being a menacing factor. There were moments when the towering Pole looked impossible to break, consistently serving around 140 mph, as Murray could only second guess where the ball was going to land.

But Murray wasn’t going to let his Wimbledon dream be crushed by this rookie, who hadn’t made the fourth round of a Grand Slam until this event.

Murray battled and battled to recover from solitary set down, taking the second and winning five games in a row to clinch the third, before his progress was abruptly halted by the decision to close the roof much to the Brit’s displeasure.

Now leading two sets to one Murray was determined to retain the advantage. After a 30 minute wait he quickly regained his momentum under the beaming lights of centre court, as the roaring crowd spurred him on to a 6-7 (2-7) 6-4 6-4 6-3 victory in a total of 2 hours and 52 minutes.

"He's talented and unpredictable; he has huge serves, which give you very little rhythm to come back at him.” Said Murray after the match

"It's a tough situation, there was about 45 minutes of daylight left” (before the roof was closed) "It's an outdoor event and we should play as much outdoors as we can. And I'd won five games in a row. But I took a shower, spoke to the guys and got to back work."

Murray didn’t do a lot wrong in the opening set; his serving was as good as it’s been all tournament, as he didn’t face a single break point. However Janowicz had only been broke four times while reaching the semi final and his monstrous serve was causing Murray plenty of problems.

In the fourth game of the match Murray saw his first break point go begging. But more decisively the Brit allowed two set points to pass him by while Janowicz was serving at 5-4 down. A second serve at close to 120 mph saved one of them the margins couldn’t have been finer.

Janowicz had been considerably calm considering this was his first slam final, and in the lottery of the tie break it was the higher ranked Murray who buckled. The Pole’s free hitting allowed him to run away with the breaker and the vital first set, as some abnormal errors crept into the Murray game.

However Janowicz had little time to celebrate his first set triumph, as the giant Pole showed his first signs of faltering, serving two double faults in the opening game of the second set to hand Murray a crucial break.

The 2^nd seed then showed his efficiency by holding serve for the remainder of the set, as Janowicz threw everything to get the break back. However Murray stood firm saving four break points to level the match at one set all.   

With the time approaching 8pm Janowicz began to ask continuous questions to umpire Jake Garner about when the roof would be closed, demanding the man in the chair to “tell me the exact time”

That permanently growing argument could have backfired on Janowicz but instead it only seemed to fire up the mouthy Pole who demonstrated there was more to his game than just his serve, showing a variety of big forehand’s and delicate drop shots to break Murray for the first time in the fourth game of the third set to take command.

But sometimes it’s amazing just how momentum can change, at one stage Murray trailed 4-1 in and needed to react fast to prevent going down 2 sets to 1. Twenty minutes later the match had totally flipped on its head and it was the Brit who was serving for the third set.

Murray reeled off five games in a row to clinch set number three breaking his opponent twice, as Janowicz started becoming predictable overusing the drop shot whilst he began to run out of ideas.

Janowicz didn’t do himself many favours. His constant moaning at the umpire about the roof made it easy for the Pole to take of the role of the villain which at times brought him boos from the crowd.

The momentum was strongly with Murray, but if Janowicz couldn’t stop him, tournament referee Andrew Jarrett could. At 8:30 the decision was made to close the roof to which Murray argued “It's unfair, it's an outdoor tournament” before saying “you’re only doing it because he's been complaining about it for 45 minutes."

After 30 minutes off court the match could have easily swung back the way of the Pole, however Murray refused to let the brief interruption bother him. Subsequent to both players holding their opening service game Janowicz was the one to blink first, when Murray broke in the third game aided by more errors and a double fault from the Polish number one.       

Once he had the break there was no chance of Murray giving it back, he charged to victory and his second successive Wimbledon final. He even broke the Janowicz serve for a final time to spare us the drama and agony of him serving it out himself.

Murray’s success was greeted with an echoing roar from crowd who are sure to be right behind him in Sunday’s final, as he bids to become the first British male winner since Fred Perry back in 1936.

Now all that stands in Murray’s way of his maiden Wimbledon title is the ever ominous world number one Novak Djokovic who was given his biggest scare yet by Juan Martin Del Potro in the other semi final, which the Serb finally prevailed 7-5 4-6 7-6 (7-2) 6-7 (6-8) 6-3 in the longest ever men’s semi final at SW19 lasting 4 hours and 44 minutes.

Sunday’s final has all the makings of a classic but will it be Murray mania on his home turf, or will the determined Djokovic spoil the prolonged party?