Andy Murray came into today’s 2015 French Open semi-final showdown with Novak Djokovic playing arguably the finest clay-court tennis of his career and the hope was tennis fans would be treated to a highly competitive match. To his credit, the talented Scot gave it all he had and actually put an end to the World No. 1’s run of winning 19 consecutive sets at a major, a streak which ironically enough dates back to this year’s Australian Open Final between these same two combatants.
In what was a rather bizarre match, one never really got the sense that Djokovic was ever really worried about being what appeared to be, at least on the surface, a rather tight match but in actuality, it was anything but. While the No. 3 seed struggled with his form during nearly every crucial point, Djokovic looked as though he was running through nothing more than a practice session for much of the opening two plus sets, in taking both by the same score of 6-3.
It seemed like a forgone conclusion that his mastery over the two-time slam winner would continue but seemingly out of nowhere, Murray found both the nerve and necessary game to manufacture a break of serve at 5-5 in what was his one and only look at a break point to stage of the match. Impressive indeed and he used that momentum to close out the set and extend the proceedings even further.
While Djokovic left the court prior to the start of the fourth set on an “injury timeout”, it was Murray who grabbed the early lead but not surprisingly, Djokovic wasted little time in bouncing back to even things up. Unfortunately the weather that many had been hinting at possibly rearing its ugly head before the day was out, was quickly approaching and that was reason enough for the off court officials to suspend play.
With the score deadlocked at 3-3 and Djokovic set to serve, it seemed as good a time as any to pull the plug on action until tomorrow. While not an ideal scenario by any means, tournament officials made the right call. In fact, with at least half a set of tennis still left to be played, if not more, it was the only decision any rational thinking individual would have made.
As of this moment, a start time for the resumption of action has not officially been released but the match will be played prior to the start of Saturday’s women’s Final between top seed Serena Williams and the surprising Lucie Safarova, who already managed to knock off defending champ and No. 2 seed Maria Sharapova earlier in the tournament.
**UPDATE** Start time on Saturday will be 1pm local time and 6am eastern