ANDY Murray reached his first Masters Series final when he beat Ivo Karlovic 6-4, 6-4 in the Cincinnati tournament last night. The 21-year-old Scot, having overcome the giant Croatian who upset Roger Federer on Thursday, will meet Rafael Nadal or third-ranked Novak Djokovic in today's final, but Murray is hopeful his current good form can take him all the way.
"I don't think there's a huge difference between a semi-final and a final, but to win it would be huge," He said. "I'm going to have to play against one of the best players in the world to win it. I feel like I'm playing well enough to do it."
Mur
ray's semi-final victory guaranteed his rise from world No.9 to six, his highest ranking, and increased the chances of achieving his goal of a top-eight seeding at the US Open in three weeks' time. Maintaining the momentum which carried him to the quarter-finals of Wimbledon for the first time last month and the semi- finals of the Masters Series in Toronto last week, Murray won well against a uniquely difficult opponent. The 2.08-metre Karlovic leads the tour for the second successive year for the number of aces and service games won.
Briefly, it seemed that Karlovic might build on his career-best success against Federer when he broke the Murray serve and reached 2-0. But the Scot then found a way to return the tour's best serve. Murray frequently stood more than two metres behind the baseline to receive, but often leapt forward to take the delivery earlier than expected and increased his ability to anticipate its direction as the match progressed. He broke back at once and, while making his second break for 4-3, managed a forehand pass from so low and so wide that it had the crowd whooping.
When Murray started the second set with another break, at the eighth attempt and including another terrific winner – a forehand topspin lob winner whilst running full tilt – it seemed the match might be a short one. But Karlovic managed to get some good ground strokes into the rallies in the sixth game and to get to the net against the serve, breaking back for 3-3.
He only hung on to it until 4-4, however, at which stage his net rushes were becoming familiar targets for Murray, whose fluent ground strokes eventually broke the serve-volleyer down again.
Meanwhile, Jelena Jankovic will replace fellow Serb Ana Ivanovic as world No.1 on August 11, the WTA has said. With no tournaments taking place next week ahead of the Beijing Olympics, Jankovic will end Ivanovic's nine-week reign when the WTA governing body's computer drops the points from the events played in the same week one year ago.
Jankovic is projected to total 3,620 points on August 11 with Ivanovic on 3,612 and will become the 18th player to hold the number one ranking.
Over the last two weeks, Jankovic had squandered chances to take over the top ranking on the court.
Her bid to become No.1 last week at the Los Angeles Classic ended with a loss to Dinara Safina in the semi-finals and it was short-circuited again at the Montreal Cup on Friday with a quarter-final upset by Slovakia's Dominika Cibulkova.
The full article contains 569 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
