Andy Murray eased past French lucky-loser Lucas Pouille 6-2 6-1 in just 59 minutes to reach his first final in Rome and his second consecutive match title in as many weeks after losing against Novak Djokovic in the Madrid Mutua Open last week. The Dunblane star could meet Djokovic tomorrow if the Serbian star manages to beat Kei Nishikori in the second semifinal.
Murray has extended his win-loss record on clay to 28-3 since the start of 2015, a year in which he won two back-to-back titles in Munich and Madrid.
The first semifinal was delayed by an hour because of rain. Murray converted on four of his seven break opportunities (twice for each set). He has reached the final without dropping a set. He has dropped just 19 games in his first four matches played this week.
Murray dropped just five points in his service games and won 50 percent of the points on Pouille’s serve. The Scotsman struck 21 winners to just 9 unforced errors. Pouille made 25 unforced errors.
Murray fired some service winners to hold his serve in the first game. Pouille drew level to 1-1 with his serve but he was broken in the 4th game after wasting a 40-0 lead after making some forehand mistakes. Murray forced the game to deuce after Pouille made a double fault and got the break on his first chance with a forehand attack to take a 3-1 lead. The match was interrupted by rain in the 7th game.
After the 15-minute interruption Murray fired a service winner to hold his serve for 5-2 before converting his third break point chance to close out the first set 6-2 after 32 minutes. Pouille hit 8 winners to 14 unforced errors in the first set.
Murray dropped just one point on his serve in the second set. Pouille got a game point in the fourth game but sent his forehand long to drop his serve in the longest game of the match.
Murray got a double break in the sixth game and closed out the match by holding his serve to reach his 18th Masters 1000 final.
World Number 52 Pouille has reached his first Masters 1000 semifinal as a lucky loser after being admitted in the Main Draw following the withdrawal of Jo Wilfried Tsonga. Pouille will be seeded at the Roland Garros.
Murray will celebrate his 29th birthday on Sunday on the final’s day.
“It’s the first time since I have been on Tour that I have not had the chance to hit balls before going on to the court. It pretty much rained non stop and then they flipped the schedule around so I didn’t feel comfortable coming on to court but he made a few mistakes and I served well to make it easy for myself. A lot of the best players of all time have played, won and competed for the title there, so I am happy to get the chance to do that. After 10 years of kind of struggling on the clay and especially this event maybe not playing my best, I am happy to be there”, said Murray.
