Andy Murray advanced to the semi-finals of the Rogers Cup on Friday night with a rain-delayed 6-4 6-4 triumph over defending champion Jo-WIlfried Tsonga in Montreal.
The second-seeded Scot broke the Tsonga serve once in each set to emerge victorious in a match which finished at around 0130 local time.
Murray will meet Kei Nishikori in the last four after the Japanese fourth seed ousted Rafael Nadal 6-2 6-4.
The first four games went with serve, before Murray gained the vital opening break in game five courtesy of a fierce forehand up the line.
Murray was serving well and volleying sweetly as he looked to avenge last year's quarter-final defeat to Tsonga, and closed out the first set without too much trouble.
The British number one, aiming to become world number two should he reach Sunday's final, offered the world number 24 a glimmer of hope in game four of the second set with two break points. But the Frenchman passed up the first and could then do nothing as Murray's first ace of the match took the game to deuce, from where the two-time major winner held.
At 3-3 in the second set there was all to play for, and it was Murray who seized the initiative with a wonderful lob to break the Tsonga serve for a second time.
Serving for the match at 5-4, Tsonga saved the first match point with a fine winner but was unable to do anything about the second as Murray marched on.
Tsonga struck more winners with 31 to Murray's 24, but had double the amount of unforced errors at 28-14.
Saturday's other semi-final will see top seed Novak Djokovic take on unseeded Frenchman Jeremy Chardy.
Murray thanked the fans for sticking around to see the match despite the frustrations of the weather disruptions.
"A lot of the crowd stayed and that really helped me get motivated," the 28-year-old said on www.atpworldtour.com. "They created a good atmosphere out there and I appreciate everyone staying.
"I passed well. I came up with some good passing shots and that was the difference today."
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