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Andy Murray has reached his third Wimbledon final - and his eleventh slam final, equalling Edberg, McEnroe and Wilander, and overtaking Fred Perry's record of ten - with a routine straight sets semi-final win over Tomas Berdych. A sign of his increased consistency over the last two year is that he is the only player this year to have reached the final of all the slams played so far. The final will be the rematch of the Queen's final four Sundays ago that opponent Milos Raonic expressed his desire for in his post-match runner's up speech on the 19th of June.
Raonic defeated Federer in five sets to reach his first slam final. Trailing two sets to one at the tail end of the fourth set, Federer 40-0 up on his own serve and a tiebreak beckoning, the Canadian looked out of ideas. Then Federer double faulted. Twice. At 40-30 Raonic played bravely and fought to break the Swiss man to take things into a decider which he won with booming serves and very little fuss. The win makes him the first Canadian man to reach a singles final at a slam.
Two years ago his compatriot Eugene Bouchard reached the Ladies' singles final and was drubbed by Petra Kvitova. Raonic will be hoping for a better result, but that has as much to do with the man on the other side of the net. Despite Andy's experience at this level this final is a 'first' for him as well. It is the first time he has entered a slam final ranked higher than his opponent, and the first time he has not faced Federer or Djokovic on the final Sunday. Andy will be hoping his experience counts, but it does bring with it a unique sort of pressure and one which he has not experienced before. But it is an opportunity not to be missed - he's never had a semi-final and final draw like this.
Raonic was forced to produce his very best tennis at crucial moments against Federer, he didn't always manage it, but on arguably the biggest point of the match he was inspired. Andy by contrast wasn't forced to play anywhere near his highest level, but played with enough creativity and focus to make Berdych look pedestrian after a while. The Czech man made some howling errors off his forehand, while Andy kept things tidy, hitting just nine unforced errors and fifteen forced errors.
Andy will be looking to peak at the right time. The big serving, big hitting, opponents he has faced in the second week can only help to prepare him for the fastest server in the tournament. Raonic has hit the fastest serve of the championships at 144mph, 137 aces, and also the most double faults with 28.
While his serve is a huge weapon Raonic has a tendency to hammer it down and go for broke, giving little credence to placement. Returners of Andy's quality usually find a way to pick off poorly placed serves and put pressure on the server, forcing poor serves and double faults. Andy's returning on break points has been a particular strength this tournament, with 100% of serves put back into play on break points, even if he has not always won the point it puts pressure on the server to hold.
Raonic has made a serious commitment to moving forward to the net, and it has been notable since the beginning of the year that his volleying and movement have improved, and that improvement has accelerated somewhat in the last few weeks on grass. For all the work Andy has done in the last two years on his net game and approach shots he has been slightly reticent in this regard, often hanging back in points when he could have come forward and ended the point. Against Raonic he will need to hit deep and take control of the net, while his passing and lobbing will need to be finely tuned.
In the spring of 2014 Raonic had control of their head-to-head, leading 3-1 with Andy's sole win at that point coming at the US Open 2012. Since the World Tour Finals in 2014 Andy has dominated, with five wins in a row to take the lead 6-3. Some would argue that Raonic has been injured in some of those matches, but it should be noted the only one where he started the match injured was in Madrid 2015, after which he had foot surgery. Raonic seems to be another big hitter who Andy seems to have worked out, and as matches go on Raonic is another player who struggles to handle Andy's variety and defence. Andy has won their two slam meetings, but he knows how much the Canadian has improved, dropping opening sets - and tiebreaks in both matches - in their Australian Open semi-final and the Queen's final this year.
The match will be played on Sunday 10th July on Centre Court at 2pm. The weather is forecast to be dry when the match is scheduled to be played, but there is a chance of showers in the morning, before the cloud clears to make way for some sun in the afternoon, temperatures of around 21 degrees Celsius, a south-westerly wind of 15mph with gusts of up to 32mph, humidity is expected to be around 75% when the match begins but could drop to 57% depending how long the players detain each other on court.
