By Chris Oddo | Friday June 3, 2016
Andy Murray has been raked over the coals at Roland Garros this fortnight but on Friday he walked through the fire unscathed carrying the scalp of defending champion Stan Wawrinka.
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Murray’s emotional 6-4, 6-2, 4-6, 6-2 victory over the Swiss places the Great Scot into the Roland Garros final, where he’ll face world No. 1 Novak Djokovic for a title that has eluded them both. The 29-year-old is the first British man to be placed in the Roland Garros final since Bunny Austin in 1937.
He couldn’t have done it with more authority. Spot-on with his tactics and his energy from first ball to last, the No. 2 seed raced ahead early then withstood a furious push from Wawrinka, finally steaming to the finish line with a flurry to complete one of his finest Grand Slam victories to date.
“To reach the finals of the French the first time, that's a big moment for me,” he would later say. “It's not an easy thing to do. You know, like I said a few years ago, I never really expected to be able to do that.”
Many did expect Murray, who defeated Djokovic in the final clay tune-up in Rome, to reach the final, but when he was forced to go five sets in each of his first two matches here, sentiment quickly changed.
Energy at the majors is a precious commodity and the common belief was that Murray had spent too much of his too early. But Murray made short work of two of the game’s biggest servers in Ivo Karlovic and John Isner in the next two rounds, and by the time he has disposed of Richard Gasquet in four sets in the quarterfinals, he actually looked to be in better shape than Djokovic, who has been forced into playing on each of the last four days due to Paris rainfall.
“I think I have never played against him as strong as he was playing today,” Wawrinka said. “He was strong everywhere.”
As Murray and Djokovic prepare to meet for the 34th time, there is a burgeoning sense of hope in the Murray camp. Riding a career-best 11-match winning streak on clay and snapping a three-match losing streak to Wawrinka, he has become a true clay-court player rather than simply an exceptionally talented player that is trying to make due on the surface. His wonderfully varied, nuanced game, is flowing freely. He can blast the ball with eye-catching pace and spin, he can feather it just over the net and he can lob it over the tallest of tree-like players. Whatever he needs, he has.
But what will he have left for Novak Djokovic?
Murray has dropped his last two Grand Slam finals against Djokovic and 12 of 14 in total. And the Serb looked invincible in taking down Dominic Thiem in three sets on Court Suzanne Lenglen on Friday.
“It's obviously a very big match for both of us,” Murray said. “I mean, Novak trying to win the career slam it's obviously a huge match for him, and me trying to win my first French Open, as well.”
With both players competing in their 20’s for the last time, Murray was quick to point out that he’s aware of the fact that there might not be many more chances to win in Paris. “Neither of us know how many more chances we'll have to win here,” he said. “It took obviously Roger a long time to win this one. And Novak, too. It's a very tough event to win. There is a lot riding on the match for both of us. Like I said, I hope we can both play a good match.”
Djokovic will battle for the Roland Garros title for a fourth time on Sunday. He dropped two finals to Rafael Nadal before falling to Stan Wawrinka in last year’s final, and he knows he’ll have his hands full again this year. “He's a fighter,” Djokovic said of Murray on Friday. “He has improved so much on the clay court over the years. I mean, this season is a great example of that. I'm sure that it's gonna be a final with a lot of emotions and a lot of exchanges from the baseline because we have similar styles of game. I know his game; he knows mine. I'm sure we're gonna try to both give it all on Sunday.”
Murray, who became just the 10th man in the Open Era to have reached the final of all four Grand Slam events, is expecting the same.
“We have had some really big battles in the slams before on all the other surfaces,” he said. “I'm sure it will be the same again on Sunday.”