Murray and Cilic to meet in Queen’s final
Originally published on: 15/06/13 00:00
Murray stepped up his bid for a third title at The Queen’s Club after another frustrating day of rain delays in West London.
The Briton and his French opponent were ushered onto court earlier than anticipated when the decision was made to move the other semi-final between Cilic and Lleyton Hewitt onto Court 1, despite the pair having started their match on Centre Court before the rain came down.
If the call to play came unexpectedly it didn’t show in the early exchanges as Murray and Tsonga, who were pictured playing a game of table football during the rain delay, traded holds in the opening eight games.
It was the No.2 seed Tsonga who struck the first blow of the match when a double fault from the Murray racket handed him a break to lead 5-4, which he consolidated with a hold to take the opening set 6-4.
Nothing could separate the pair in the second set until Murray took advantage of some wayward play by Tsonga to break for a 5-3 lead and the No.1 seed never looked back, taking the second set before breaking the Frenchman’s serve twice more in the decider to clinch the match 4-6 6-3 6-2.
“I think most of the matches there has been patches where I played a high level, and all the matches it's been parts where, you know, I have been a little bit inconsistent or just played a couple of sloppy games,” said Murray after the win.
“I managed to find ways to win the matches, which is important, and, you know, I'm playing well. I'm hitting the ball well. Just sometimes making some bad choices or some poor mistakes. Like I said yesterday, that will come with playing matches, so it's been a very productive week for me, and it's great to be in the final and, you know, with the match tomorrow and a good week, good week's practice before Wimbledon, it's looking good.”
Next up for Murray is world No.12 Cilic, who overcame a second set blip to see off Hewitt 6-4 4-6 6-2 in front of a sparse crowd on Court 1.
After the loss, the Australian, who is a four-time champion at Queen’s, vented his frustration over the court switch.
“It was all weird,” said Hewitt. “We were getting ready to play on Centre Court again, and we saw the covers coming off, and all of a sudden we got told we could be moving to Court 1 by an ATP guy.
“I was disappointed, obviously,” he added. “To play a semifinal on a tour event, especially one like this, Court 1 in front of a few people is not the ideal situation that you want to play in.”
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