Andy Murray reaches China Open final with win over David Ferrer
Saturday 8 October 2016 17:06, UK
Andy Murray reached the final of the China Open with a straight-sets win over David Ferrer in Beijing on Saturday.
Murray prevailed 6-2 6-3 in a one-sided contest and will now face Grigor Dimitrov in Sunday's decider.
"I did well," Murray said on the ATP website. "I was obviously 2-1 down with a break in the first set. Even the period in the second set where he came back a bit, when he broke me, there was a lot of long points. Really good tennis I thought.
"Thankfully I got the break at 3-2. That was a big game because he had some chances to win that game. I had a couple of break points. Got the momentum back on my side straight away and finished it off pretty well.
"I felt like if I could find a way to get through the first couple of matches, I'd start to feel better and play better here. Thankfully that's been the case so far this week."
The No 1 seed suffered a break of serve in just the third game of the match but then reeled off five games in a row to win the opening set in 48 minutes.
He looked firmly on course for victory when he broke again to lead 3-1 in the second set, but Ferrer then responded with a break of his own in the next game and it momentarily looked like the 34-year-old Spaniard would mount a fightback.
However, Murray quashed his hopes by breaking again in the next game for a 4-2 lead and, from there, he easily saw out a comfortable win.
Ferrer's game was littered with 34 unforced errors and undermined by a weak second serve, off which he won only 36 per cent of the points.
Murray will now challenge for his 40th tour-level title on Sunday and also has the chance to close to within 1,555 points of leader Novak Djokovic at the top of the ATP Rankings.
It will be his ninth final of the season, having won four and lost four of the previous eight, and his first appearance in the China Open final.
Dimitrov was given a walkover into the final when Milos Raonic was forced to withdraw due to an ankle injury sustained in his quarter-final win over Pablo Carreno Busta on Friday.
Murray leads the head-to-head record 7-3 against the Bulgarian, who will be aiming to win his first title in two years, including a straight-sets victory at last month's US Open.
"I'll try and play another high-level match again tomorrow," added Murray. "Dimitrov has been playing a lot better the past few months. He had a very good win against Rafa (Nadal) yesterday. It will be a hard match."
