Britain’s Andy Murray won 2 matches within a matter of hours to reach the 1st clay-court final of his career at the Munich Open. The top-seeded Scot’s quarter-final against Lukas Rosol got under way at 10:00 local time on Saturday after rain had washed out Friday’s play.
He won 4-6 6-3 6-2, and then returned less than 3 hours later to beat Roberto Bautista Agut 6-4 6-4.
Murray will play German 5th seed Philipp Kohlschreiber in the final.
The world number three’s day began with a testing encounter against Czech Rosol, who reeled off 5 games in a row to take the first set.
Murray, who is travelling with coach Jonas Bjorkman this week for the first time, responded strongly to take control of the match, breaking 5 times on his way to victory.
3rd seed Bautista Agut beat Victor Estrella Burgos of the Dominican Republic 4-6 6-0 6-0, but the Spaniard could not build on a solid start against Murray in their semi-final. The Scot, who recently got married, turned around a 3-0 deficit with back-to-back breaks and made the decisive move with a third break at the start of the second set.
Murray later played his 3rd match of the day when he and Dutchman Jean-Julien Rojer lost 6-3 6-2 to top seeds Alexander Peya and Bruno Soares in the doubles semi-finals.
Kohlschreiber had earlier needed 1 hour and 37 minutes to see off Austrian qualifier Gerald Melzer 2-6 6-1 6-4 in the second singles semi-final.
“It wasn’t too easy,” Murray said afterwards.
“He had a different style to most other players and it was tricky playing against a left-hander, but I got the important points. He was returning from a long way back.
“My forehand went better than my backhand, but it was a good first match for me.”
Murray has brought former Swedish world number 4 Bjorkman into his camp as his other coach, Amelie Mauresmo, prepares for the birth of her first child.
“As a coach I don’t know him that well because we only spent a few days in Barcelona last week, but he’s a very calm guy,” said Murray.
“He obviously has a lot of experience in singles and doubles, which is good. We’ll see this week how it goes, but I get on well with him.”
Murray reaches Munich Open final
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