Andy Murray Powers Past Juan Martin Del Potro to Set Up Showdown With Novak Djokovic

Andy Murray earned the chance to win the biggest title of his career when he beat Juan Martin Del Potro 6-1, 5-7, 6-2 to reach the final of the Sony Ericsson Open, often regarded as the most important event outside the four grand slams. Murray carved out the success with athletic containment, intelligent changes of tactics and the guts to hang on when things got tough early in the final set.

However Murray did not often take the initiative, which meant he was usually made to do more of the running, and he also to survive a controversial delay just when he was making the crucial breakthrough. Del Potro, clearly feeling the strain of another long encounter – this one was two hours and 17 minutes and came a day after a three-set marathon against Rafael Nadal — had slipped to break point down at 2-4 in the decider when he suddenly walked to the side of the court, amidst boos, claiming that he had a fresh injury.

In fact it looked as though he were complaining of a thigh strain, which he may well have previously sustained, leaving Murray was to wander around the court, practicing shadow strokes by himself, while his opponent sat down, received treatment, and re-grouped.

It was testimony to Murray's resilience and brains that he still came up with what was needed, and earned his fourth ATP World Tour final of the year, where he will play the world No3 Novak Djokovic, a former champion.

But it looked as though Murray might win much more quickly than that.

For the third consecutive match Murray made a flying start, this time getting airborne before his opponent got out of the hangar. Against Troicki he went 5-0 up, against Verdasco 4-0, and now again he was 5-0 up in no time.

But in the second set, Murray faltered early on. He let slip a lead of 40-love and dropped serve by double faulting at break point, and although the damage of 0-2 was quickly repaired at 2-2, Murray had allowed Del Potro into the match and the crowd to vent their feelings. From then on the Argentine rallied with more confidence and aggression, suddenly looking taller than his six feet six inches, and more threatening with his sweaty half-beard, tight bandana and sleeveless green vest, which tended to accentuate the length of his arms. He never looked like dropping serve again, and eventually one bad service game by Murray, under pressure at 5-6, amidst shrieking voices, was enough to decide the set.

For a short while in the final set it looked as though Murray might be in trouble, until, with a bout of energetic containing, he lured enough errors from Del Potro to break for 3-2. Suddenly the mood changed, the Argentine's movement looked more sluggish, and Murray got to break again. But only after that untimely injury break, after which Murray found his fastest return winner of the match, and followed it with some more elastic retrieving, did he reach 5-2 with a crucial double break.

After closing it out to love with his pet shot, a deceptively fierce backhand down the line, he celebrated with some strange twitching of his arms and hurling sweatlets into the crowd.

Murray can now no longer become the highest ranked Briton of all time this week by overtaking Djokovic, but if he can beat the Serb in Sunday's final he will be in prime position to climb to No3 during the imminent clay court season, in which the Scot will have few ranking points to defend.