CINCINNATI: Freshly crowned Olympic gold medalist Andy Murray defeated Canadian No. 1 Milos Raonic 6-3, 6-3 to book a spot in the ATP-WTA Tour's Cincinnati final where he will face Marin Cilic.
Murray has had to overcome fatigue associated with the quick turnaround from the Rio Games gold medal match, while Cilic will have less than 12 hours of rest before taking the court for Sunday's final.
That's because his 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 semi-final victory over Grigor Dimitrov was delayed two hours by rain and didn't finish until 1:20 am Sunday (5:20 GMT).
Cilic has reached a first Masters 1000 final on his 71st attempt.
"I was twice a break down in the third set, I didn't play good tennis today. It was not easy to play but I managed to win," he said.
Murray said he is also feeling the effects of playing a lot of tennis in a short period of time.
"It's better for me to be finished now, but I'm not going to be fresher than Marin or Grigor," said Murray, winner of 50 matches this season. "I've played a lot of tennis. This week has been hard for me coming from Rio.
"Because I've won a lot the last few months, keeping the matches shorter is something that has been good, especially this week for sure.
"I'm in another final now. Go I'll go out there and give it a good go tomorrow and get a few days break before getting ready for New York."
Murray will be playing in his seventh straight final after winning his 22nd consecutive match. He owns four titles in 2016 and has defeated Raonic five times since January.
Murray broke in an opening game interrupted for 15 minutes by raindrops, with Raonic contributing two double faults.
Murray won his eighth match from 11 meetings with Raonic as the pair played a re-run of July's Wimbledon final won by the Scot.
Murray is mounting a strong bid to displace Novak Djokovic from the number one ranking.
If he were to win the title for a third time he could trail Djokovic by a scant 815 points.
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