Jamie Murray is through to his second grand slam final in three months, alongside his eminent doubles partner, John Peers, who is still wondering why he will not be lining up against him when Australia visit Glasgow on Friday week to contest the Davis Cup semi-finals against Great Britain.
They have played outstandingly well for a long while, with a breakthrough win over the game’s finest exponents, Bob and Mike Bryan, and then reaching the final at Wimbledon. The twins went out in the first round to their unseeded fellow Americans, Steve Johnson and Sam Querrey, a pairing so buoyed by the upset they worked their way steadily through the draw to Thursday’s semi-final, where they ran into the combined might of Murray and Peers, who took an hour and 55 minutes to win 6-4, 6-7, 7-6. “You’ve got to take confidence winning on a tie-break and hopefully we can go one better in the final,” Peers said courtside.
Peers’s serve went to sleep on him when the match was on his racket in the third set, Querrey breaking with a cracking forehand down the line, then holding for five-all. Murray saved match point in the tie-break with a steady hand at the net, and Querrey did likewise with an athletic smash, but the tall American handed it back with an overcooked lob, and Peers was again serving for a place in the final. He looked mightily relieved when Querrey’s final backhand drifted long.
They will play the Frenchmen Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut, who earlier accounted for the British-Swedish alliance of Dominic Inglot and Robert Lindstedt 7-5, 6-2 in an hour and 24 minutes.
Inglot, who is also in the Great Britain squad, was hoping to make a statement here that might protect his status for what could be the crunch doubles match against the Australians next weekend but that task will almost certainly be left in the hands of Jamie and Andy Murray.
It was the Murray brothers who single-handedly beat France in the quarter-finals at Queen’s and Andy said after leaving here prematurely in the fourth round of the singles that he is still keen to play all three matches if it fits with the strategy of his Davis Cup captain, Leon Smith. It fits.
Inglot and Lindstedt played some lovely tennis but were not quite sharp enough in the key moments against Mahut and Herbert, the 12th seeds.
This was to have been a free-admission hit-and-giggle day before the night session but the weather forced the cancellation of John and Patrick McEnroe’s little joust with Michael Chang and Todd Martin (also wiping out the evening programme) so those who braved the elements got to see some proper tennis. It was worth paying for.
Doubles is such a beautifully paced game, a bit like pinball, as the exchanges quicken during a point, taking on an urgency absent in singles as both teams close on the net looking for gaps on the wider 36-feet target. It invariably comes down to big serving and lightning reflexes, and some of the shot-making on show was delightful. And as in batting, the art of the leave is a key component when opponents try to blast winners from mid-court.
After a delayed start with rain clouds regrouping and the wind starting to whip a bit, all was going smoothly in the first semi-final until the Inglot/Lindstedt combination hit a bit of a roadblock in the eighth game, the Swede finding their fifth ace to break a six-deuce deadlock.
However, in the 12th game, a soft reply by Lindstedt to a smart return by Herbert, who threaded the ball neatly into unattended space on the deuce side, cost them the set after an engaging tussle of 47 minutes.
Twenty minutes into the second set play was held up to allow medics to attend to a woman in the stands who seemed to have passed out. When they resumed, the French broke again then held for 4-1, Mahut smashing the winner. The onus of holding serve to stay in the match fell to Lindstedt, who needed a banana and attention to his left calf before stepping up. Herbert volleyed the perfect winner.
