Andy Murray beaten in five sets by Novak Djokovic in French Open semi-finals
Sunday 7 June 2015 16:05, UK
Andy Murray's hopes of winning a third Gram Slam title were crushed again by Novak Djokovic after the world No 1 held off a spirited fightback to book his place in the French Open final with a 6-3 6-3 5-7 5-7 6-1 win.
Murray had clawed back the third set before play was suspended on Friday night at 3-3 in the fourth and the British No 1 picked up where he left off on Saturday by breaking in the 11th game of the fourth set to send it to a fifth.
Djokovic, however, was relentless in the final set, breaking twice to clinch victory, sealing his win with an ace, and the Serb will now play Switzerland's Stan Wawrinka in Sunday's final.
"This is one of the toughest matches we have had, no doubt about that," said Djokovic, who took his 2015 record to 41 wins against just two defeats.
"Five sets over four hours. It's always physical. It's always demanding from every aspect of the game because we have similar styles of play.
"We tend to run each other around and play cat and mouse game, and it's tiring. It's exhausting to play him."
Djokovic already owns eight major titles - but none from Roland Garros, where he lost the 2012 and 2014 finals to Rafael Nadal, the nine-time champion he eliminated in this year's quarter-finals.
The top seed stretched his winning streak to 28 matches by beating Murray and now has a 16-0 record on clay this season.
He will play his third Roland Garros final in four years against former Australian Open champion Wawrinka for a chance to claim the ninth major title of his career.
Djokovic also would be the first man since Jim Courier in 1992 to win the Australian Open and French Open consecutively, putting him halfway to the first calendar-year Grand Slam in 46 years.
Murray still feels optimistic that he is close to landing his third Grand Slam title but admitted that Djokovic was the better player in the deciding set.
"In the fifth set he was hitting the ball very close to the line, so I ended up doing a lot of defending," admitted Murray.
"I felt like I ended up putting up like six or seven lobs just because he was hitting the ball very close to the line."
