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Andy Murray has reached his first World Tour Final semi-final at London's O2 since 2012 with a dominant win over Stan Wawrinka, to top the John McEnroe group at the season ending showdown. His opponent from the Ivan Lendl group will be Milos Raonic.
Andy and Raonic have faced each other in some big matches this season. Beginning in Melbourne an emotionally distracted Andy triumphed in five-sets to reach his fifth Australian Open final, in Monte Carlo Andy swept Raonic aside to reach the semi-final, at Queen's Raonic began strongly before Andy made history with a fifth title there, at Wimbledon Andy dominated the Canadian to lift his third slam trophy, and in Cincinnati Raonic had no answers. Two weeks ago in Paris Raonic withdrew from their semi-final match with a thigh tear and Andy became world number one.
Unsurprisingly Raonic has been serving double figures of aces this week. He has faced just two break points, but failed to save either. Praised for his improved net play earlier this season, he has under-performed in this area this week, proving especially poor at the net in a match he could have won against Novak Djokovic. The Canadian, looking to finish the season as world number three, has put these mistakes at the net down to lack of practice time in recent weeks as he has struggled with a recurring thigh injury.
For his part, Andy seemed to find his range and timing just when he needed it against Stan. The O2 venue has rarely seen Andy produce his best tennis, but he has played arguably two of his best matches of the season against the Swiss number one, and Friday afternoon's match was no different. He served cleanly, with good placement, and used variety in his pace and spin to good effect. The awfulness of his net play against Kei Nishikori was soon forgotten, winning twelve out of fifteen net approaches in his final round robin match.
Tiebreaks have been a feature of Raonic's week. Losing two to Djokovic and winning one against Thiem. Andy has played one - against Nishikori - but despite some battling points he lost it.
Prior to the latter part of 2014 Andy had a losing record against Raonic. Their head-to-head was somewhat marred by walkovers and neither seeming to be fit at the same time, but Andy turned things around as he began to rediscover his more varied game, turned that variety into a weapon, improved his already strong returning - just as he did with another big-hitter Tomas Berdych - and now leads the head-to-head 8-3.
The match is scheduled to be played at 2pm GMT. The winner will reach their first final at the O2.
