Andy Murray reached his second successive Wimbledon final on Friday, beating Poland’s Jerzy Janowicz under the Centre Court roof.
In the dramatic semi-final encounter, the proceedings had to be brought to a halt after the third set because of fading light. Murray wasn’t happy about the decision, but returned to complete a 6-7 (2-7), 6-4, 6-4, 6-3 victory.
“It’s a tough situation, there was about 45 minutes of daylight left,” Murray told BBC Sport of the decision to close the roof.
“It’s an outdoor event and we should play as much outdoors as we can. And I’d won five games in a row. I took a shower, spoke to the guys and got back to work.”
The 26-year-old second seed will play Serb Novak Djokovic for the title on Sunday as Britain wait to end the 77-year wait for a men’s singles champion.
“Novak and Del Potro played an incredible match, Novak moved so well. I’ve only played him on grass here at the Olympic so I’ll take that into the Sunday,” said the Olympic Gold medalist on the prospect of Sunday’s final Murray-Djokovic face-off.
Murray won Djokovic and Roger Federer on his way to becoming the first British man to win a singles tournament at Wimbledon since 1936 for Team GB and, was a Wimbledon proper finalist same year but lost to the Swiss world number three.
The Briton had to wait until (7:19 GMT+1) to fire down the first serve of his semi-final encounter with the Pole, because Djokovic took nearly five hours to beat Juan-Martin del Potro in a thrilling encounter of the first semi-final.
The late start would prove significant a little over two hours later, after Murray raced through five straight games to win the third set and take control of a match that had been slipping away.
Two hours and eleven minutes later, tournament referee Andrew Jarret arrived on court to announce the roof would be brought across because of fading light.
He would return to put paid to 22-year-old Janowicz’s ambition of making his first Grand Slam final, but not without struggling to contain the Pole in the early stages.
“It was a very tough match and completely different from any other match I’ve had here this year,” Murray said.
“He’s talented and unpredictable, he has huge serves, which give you very little rhythm to come back at him.”
Janowicz showed no sign of nerves early on as he saved one break point and two set points with a huge second serves.
The 6ft 8in tall Pole looked remarkably composed in the opening 50 minutes of the first set which he won when Murray double faulted in the tie-break.
Murray leveled up after one hour 33 minutes into the game as Janowicz soon appeared to be giving in.
Murray took the third set to take a two sets to one lead and under the closed roof of Centre Court came back to finish off the contest by the time two double faults in a row by the Pole brought up match point for him, and the second seed cracked a forehand return winner to keep his Wimbledon title hopes alive
