Andy Murray recovered from a slow start to surge into today’s final of the China Open with victory over David Ferrer.
The world No 2’s win made it a British double as earlier Johanna Konta reached the women’s final by beating Madison Keys 7-6 (7/1), 4-6, 6-4, in an encounter that lasted more than two-and-a-half hours. Her victory – which set up a final clash with Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland – sees her becoming the first British female to break into the top 10 of the world rankings in 32 years.
Murray had to come from behind in the opening set in Beijing before hitting back to win the next five games on his way to a 6-2, 6-3, win in 90 minutes.
The 29-year-old faces Grigor Dimitrov for the title after Milos Raonic was unable to start their semi-final due to an ankle injury.
Ferrer, who was beaten by Murray in the quarter-finals of the Australian Open in January, broke for a 2-1 lead in the first set but was immediately broken back to love.
Consecutive double faults then gave Murray three more break points in the sixth game and, although Ferrer saved two, a backhand which drifted over the baseline gave Murray a 4-2 lead.
Another break of serve saw Murray take the opening set after 48 minutes and the double Olympic champion raced into a 3-1 lead in the second before surprisingly losing his serve. However, that proved to be a brief lapse in concentration and Murray immediately broke Ferrer’s serve before wrapping up a seventh straight win against the 34-year-old.
“I did well,” the Scot said. “I was obviously 2-1 down with a break in the first set. Even the period in the second set where he came back a bit, when he broke me, there were a lot of long points. It was really good tennis, I thought.
“Thankfully I got the break at 3-2. That was a big game because he had some chances to win it. But I got the momentum back on my side straight away and finished it off pretty well.”
Murray added: “I felt like if I could find a way to get through the first couple of matches here, I’d start to feel better and play better. Thankfully that’s been the case.
“I’ll try to play another high- level match in the final. Dimitrov has been playing a lot better the past few months. He had a very good win against Rafa [Nadal] yesterday. It will be a hard match.”
Dimitrov was given a walkover into the final when Raonic was forced to withdraw due to an i njury sustained in his quarter-final win over Pablo Carreno Busta.
“I did a test this morning, which showed I had a partial tear on the outside of my ankle,” Raonic said. “I was told to give it a try. I tried to warm up just before the match and I was unable to play.”
By reaching her final, Konta, the 11th seed, will also move into the top eight of the Road to Singapore, the race to reach the WTA Finals this month.
“It’s pretty special [to be in the final],” she said. “It’s my first time playing Beijing and I’ve just been trying to prolong it as long as possible because I’m enjoying it here.”
Asked what the secret was to beating eighth-seeded Keys, Konta added: “I don’t think there really is a secret. She’s such a high- quality player, she has such weight of shots, but I just tried to run down as many balls as I could and really just take the chances I got.”
The last Briton in the top 10 of the women’s rankings was Jo Durie in 1984.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here