Andy Murray reached his first ATP Tour final for more than two years with a three-set win over giant American Reilly Opelka at the Sydney Tennis Classic.
The Scot has said for several months that a deep run at a tournament was not far away and he has made good on that this week with his best string of results since he won his last title in Antwerp in 2019.
He was frustrated to lose the opening set against 6ft 11in Opelka having fought back from 1-5 in the tie-break but he kept pressing on his opponent’s serve and got his reward for a 6-7 (6) 6-4 6-4 victory.
Murray has always performed well against big servers, his great returns and ability to keep the ball in play making it a strong match-up for him.
He holds a 7-0 record against Ivo Karlovic and 8-0 against John Isner, and this win means he remains unbeaten against the giants of the game.
Murray will now bid for a 47th career title against either compatriot Dan Evans in what would be a first all-British ATP Tour final or Russia’s Aslan Karatsev.
He said in his on-court interview: “It’s already been a great week for me. I’ll go for 47 tomorrow.”
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 hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel