Milos
Raonic 7-5, 6-7 (5-7), 6-7 (9-11) Andy Murray (ATP World Tour Finals SF)
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| Raonic and Murray meet at the net. Photo by Reuters |
Both
players looked solid on serve at the start of the match, with the first real
opportunity to break service coming at 4-4. Raonic earned 4 break points in
that game, but Raonic missed all of those rare opportunities to break and
allowed Murray to hold his serve and be a game away from winning the 1st
set. After managing to serve and stay in the set, Raonic got the first break of
the match after 10 consecutive holds of service thanks to 3 forehand unforced
errors from Murray. Raonic successfully served out the set 7-5, and just be a
set away from his first ever win over a reigning World No.1.
After an
exchange of service holds to start the 2nd set, Raonic jumped to a
service break after some good returns and lead by a set and a break to look on
course for his first win over Andy Murray this year. Nevertheless, Murray
proved why he was the World No.1 as he won 8 points in a row to immediately
break back and hold his serve to love. The set then went on serve since then,
therefore a tiebreak would decide the winner of the set. Murray earned a
mini-break early on in the tiebreak to lead 2-0, and he kept his nose in front
of the tiebreak since then, not losing a single point on serve. Thus, Murray
managed to win the tiebreak 7-5 and level the match at one set all to send the
match into a deciding set to decide the winner.
Once
again, similar to the first set, the first break of the set came very late at a
very crucial moment at 4-4, with Murray making the first breakthrough by
breaking Raonic’s serve to love after Raonic sent a backhand into the net. This
gave Murray the opportunity to serve for the match after 3 hours and 6 minutes.
Raonic then done the unbelievable by breaking Murray back immediately and make
the match back level at 5-5, shocking the home crowd. Raonic was once again
broken on his serve, after double faulting at the crucial moment at deuce and Murray
would serve for the match once again at 6-5. There was further drama as there
was a 4th consecutive break of serve after Raonic broke back once
more to send the deciding set into a tiebreak to decide all proceedings. With
Murray serving on match point, Raonic got back the mini-break at yet another
crucial moment when Murray served on match point with a wonderful forehand down
the line winner. Raonic saved 2 more match points and he finally got his
deserved match point at 9-8 in the tiebreak, but Murray won 3 straight points
to win the tiebreak and the match in which he scraped past through in 3 hours
and 38 minutes, the longest 3 set match in the ATP World Tour Finals history.
Murray
|
Raonic
|
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Aces
|
7
|
10
|
DFs
|
6
|
6
|
1st Serve
|
61%
|
63%
|
1st Serve Won
|
62%
|
74%
|
2nd Serve Won
|
63%
|
45%
|
Net Points
|
18/25
|
41/61
|
Break Points
|
3/7
|
4/12
|
Winners
|
27
|
44
|
Unforced Errors
|
36
|
54
|
Points Won
|
138
|
136
|