Friday July 8 2016 will be a day Milos Raonic remembers forever.
Not only did he get the better of seven-time Wimbledon champion Roger Federer on a grass court – his first win at a major over a player ranked in the world’s top three – more significantly, he moved into a first Grand Slam final.
Federer fans will have been thinking their man was home and dry deep into the fourth set, but Raonic produced some brilliant, aggressive tennis to force a fifth, and then put the finishing touches to a memorable and deserved 6-3, 6-7(3), 4-6, 7-5, 6-3 scoreline.
Later, Andy Murray produced a ruthlessly efficient 6-3, 6-3, 6-3 victory over Tomas Berdych to set up a repeat of his recent Queen’s Club showpiece against Raonic.
Murray – who’ll be appearing in his third Wimbledon final – will start as favourite, but if Raonic can reproduce the kind of tennis that put him a set and a break up against the Briton at Queen’s, Sunday’s title decider could go down to the wire.
Elsewhere on Friday,Venus and Serena Williams were back on court and the record-breaking Americans combined to move into their sixth Wimbledon ladies’ doubles final by beating Julia Goerges and Karolina Pliskova.
On Saturday they’ll face No.5 seeds Timea Babos and Yaroslava Shvedova who beat Raquel Atawo and Abigail Spears in the day’s other semi-final. It marks uncharted territory for Babos and Shvedova, who are into their first major final as a team.
British fans had plenty more to cheer too on Friday as Heather Watson and her partner, Henri Kontinen, went through in the Mixed Doubles.
Watson and Kontinen beat Scott Lipsky and Alla Kudryavtseva, and face Oliver Marach and Jelena Ostapenko in the semis on Saturday. The winners of that one will play Robert Farah and Anna-Lena Groenefeld in Sunday’s final.
And Briton Gordon Reid moved into the final of the inaugural men’s wheelchair singles event where he’ll face Sweden’s Stefan Olsson, who beat No.1 seed Stephane Houdet.
Dutchwoman Aniek Van Koot beat home favourite Jordanne Whiley in the ladies’ wheelchair singles semi-finals and will play fellow Dutchwoman and No.1 seed Jiske Griffioen who got past Marjolein Buis in three sets.
Day 11 in numbers
- Murray is into his 11th Grand Slam singles final (5 Australian Opens, 3 Wimbledons, 2 US Opens, 1 French Open)
- Murray has now reached more Grand Slam singles finals than any other British man, including Fred Perry
- Murray is into his third Wimbledon final, equalling Stefan Edberg, John Newcombe and Andy Roddick in 10th in the all-time list
- Murray now has 171 Grand Slam match wins, the same number as Ken Rosewall. The two men are equal 10th in the all-time list
- Murray has 52 Wimbledon match wins, one more than Bjorn Borg, and just two fewer than Novak Djokovic in 6th place in the all-time list
- Raonic is the first Canadian man to reach a Grand Slam singles final
- Raonic will move up to world No.5 if he wins the title on Sunday
- It was Federer’s first defeat in 11 Wimbledon semi-finals
- Federer stays on 84 match wins at Wimbledon and remains level with Jimmy Connors in the all-time standings
