Murray into fifth Melbourne final

Murray advances to his fifth Melbourne Park final, where he’ll meet reigning and five-time Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic in a repeat of last year’s tournament decider.

The men’s final of the Australian Open, scheduled for 7:30pm this Sunday (31 January) in Melbourne may be a good preview of what Rio 2016 will offer in August. Montreal native Greg Rusedski reached the U.S. Open final in 1997 but he was representing Great Britain at the time.

“There’s not many tennis players that come out of Scotland”, said Murray. So I’m very proud of him.

Andy said: “For it to be the first time to happen is incredible, really. It’s about what happens on Sunday”.

The 10-time major victor said the first two sets were the best he has ever played against the Swiss legend, who looked helpless against the onslaught before staging a short-lived rally in the third set. “Hopefully it can be a different result”. His wife, Kim, is due to give birth to their first child in February and he said he would fly home if she went into labour early. His father-in-law, Nigel Sears, was in Melbourne as coach for Ana Ivanovic and had to be rushed to a hospital by ambulance during a match on Rod Laver Arena, which happened to coincide with Murray’s third-round match on an adjacent arena. I don’t think many people are expecting me to win on Sunday.

But he was upbeat and confident, even though Djokovic is in the form of his life and coming off an impressive win in four sets over Federer in the first semi-final the night before.

“I think both of us will try to serve high percentage of first serves and not allow the other player attack the second serve too many times”, he said.

Djokovic and Murray have fought out some epic matches during the course of their long rivalry, although the Serbian has the clear upper hand with 21 wins to nine.

It was the 28-year-old Scot’s fourth win in seven encounters with the much-improved Canadian, who slowed in the final set as he completed the match grimacing from a right groin injury.

Raonic was forced to take medical time out in the fourth set.

“I couldn’t push off, I couldn’t get up to serve, and I couldn’t change direction”, Raonic said. “I hope we can carry it on and play for many more matches like this”. Of course, adding to that the fact that I am able to make history is just an additional encouragement and incentive for me to do well. His second serve, now beefed up and posing a threat, shut Raonic out whenever the Canadian thought he had a chance while Murray’s returns were wearing the big man down. It will be a fifth successive Grand Slam final for Djokovic, whose only defeat in Grand Slam competition past year was to Stan Wawrinka in the French Open final.

For now, Murray is planning on playing.

Saturday’s women’s final pits defending champion Serena Williams against.

Hours before that clash, his elder brother and Brazilian Bruno Soares face Canada’s Daniel Nestor and Czech Radek Stepanek in today’s doubles final.

Mirza and Ivan Dodig lost in mixed doubles semifinals, 7-5, 7-6 (7-4), to Elena Vesnina and Bruno Soares.