Andy Murray defied exhaustion to reach the final of the BMW Open in Munich and stay on course for the first clay court title of his career.
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The Scot claimed back-to-back wins over Lukas Rosol and Roberto Bautista Agut after a schedule pile-up caused by bad weather on Friday.
But the top-seeded Scot was forced to do it the hard way after fighting back from behind to beat world No41 Rosol 4-6 6-3 6-2 in their morning quarter-final, which wasn’t played in the best of spirits.
Playing in his first tournament since his marriage, Murray led 4-1 in the first set before the Czech Republic’s Rosol turned in a furious rally to take the next five games.
The two players then bumped into each other at the changeover which brought complaints from the Scot and an intervention by the ATP supervisor Gerry Armstrong.
Here is video of Andy Murray telling Lukas Rosol today that no one on tour likes him. Meow. (Via @The_Changeover) https://t.co/dOIO39xIqG
— Ben Rothenberg (@BenRothenberg) May 2, 2015
Murray told Rosol across the court: “No one likes you on the tour, everyone hates you.”
The world No 3, however, quickly shrugged off the altercation to claim 12 of the next 15 games for the win in exactly two hours.
Meanwhile, Bautista Agut was also forced to go to three sets but enjoyed an easier 4-6 6-0 6-0 win over Victor Burgos.
Murray was once again broken early when he returned to court for their semi-final, but battled back and broke the Spaniard twice on his way to taking the first set. And one more break was sufficient in the second set for Murray to hold off his world No16 and wrap up a 6-4 6-4 victory.
Murray was also scheduled for a doubles semi-final alongside Dutch partner Jean-Julien Rojer.
Murray will face Philipp Kohlschreiber today after the German was also forced to fight through two tough three-set matches to earn his final place.
Kohlschreiber started the day by coming from behind to defeat Belgian fourth seed David Goffin 2-6 6-3 6-4. He returned to court against Austrian qualifier Gerald Melzer, ranked 186th in the world.
Melzer broke Kohlschreiber twice to take the first set but began to flag and Kohlschreiber battled for a 2-6 6-1 6-4 win in just over one and a half hours.
