Murray Dominates Tiebreaks, into 2nd Consecutive Aussie Open Final

               #5 Andy Murray defeated #7 David Ferrer on Friday night to advance to his second consecutive Australian Open Final with a 4-6, 7-6, 6-1, 7-6 victory. After a shaky start, Murray took control in the tiebreaks giving up a combined four points in two tiebreaks. Now, Murray will attempt to be the first British male to win a grand slam singles title since Fred Perry did in 1936. It was a match of long, physical rallies and break points but in the end Murray prevailed. It didn't look like that early.

              The first set went to David Ferrer 6-4. Even and on serve at 3-all Murray converted on the match's first break point to take the 4-3 lead. However, on Murray's next service game, at 15-40, a Ferrer dropshot and subsequent volley put the set back at an even 4-all. At 15-30 in Ferrer's next service game, Murray won a 41- shot rally to give himself a pair of break points. However, four consecutive brilliantly constructed points led to Ferrer taking a 5-4 lead and forcing Murray to serve to stay in the set. A backhand error by the Brit in the next game gave Ferrer the first set 6-4. It was a sloppy set for Murray, who comitted 16 errors to Ferrer's 6. Both players hit 10 winners. At this point, it looked like Murray was physically tired from long rallies and points. Said Andy after the match, "Both of us did a lot of running.''

               The second set lasted 73 minutes and was a grueling set for both players. Murray broke to start the set, but was immediately broken back by Ferrer. At 2-3 with Murray serving, he faced a 15-40 deficit. However, the serve kept him in it. Back to back huge serves saved the break points and he went on to win the game and even it up at 3-all. It seemed on every break point, Murray, who only had 9 aces, would come up with a huge serve. In all, David Ferrer only converted on 5 of 18 break points. It was a huge hold for Murray. After a couple routine service games, Ferrer had a set point on Murray's serve. Of course, another unreturned serve and Murray won the game and immediately broke Ferrer to take a 6-5 lead. A missed Murray backhand on his serve gave Ferrer the break right back and the two headed to a tiebreak. This is where Andy Murray took over. Andy took a 6-0 lead before Ferrer managed 2 points and the match was dead even after 2 hours of physical, beautiful play.

                There was a guest appearance in the first point of the 3rd set. About 20 seagulls came into the stadium, if only for a few moments. It was as if they could sense that this was a good one so far. At 1-1, Murray once again used his serve to erase two break points. This gave him a 2-1 lead. He would go on to break Ferrer two times that set en route to a 6-1 set victory.

                This one was over, it seemed, when Ferrer was broken at love to start the set, and down 0-30 in the 3rd game, down 0-2. But Ferrer was not finished as he rallied in that game and then broke Murray at love. Both players held and after a big hold to get it to 5-4, Ferrer let out a huge "VAMOS." Both players held the next three games and we were headed to our 2nd tiebreaker. It was all Murray as he won 7-2 to finish the match with a 4-6, 7-6, 6-1, 7-6 hard fought victory. The match lasted 3 hours and 46 minutes. With the loss in the fourth set tiebreaker, Ferrer has now lost 11 consecutive Australian Open tiebreakers. Congrats to Andy and the final should be a good one to watch.