Rio Olympics 2016: Andy Murray beats Steve Johnson to reach semi-final
- Published
Defending champion Andy Murray reached the semi-finals of the Olympic men's singles with a 6-0 4-6 7-6 (7-2) win over American Steve Johnson.
Murray, 29, cruised through the first set, before world number 22 Johnson levelled after breaking the Briton in the first game of the second set.
Johnson broke again in the third, but the Scot rallied to progress.
Murray and Heather Watson lost 6-4 6-4 in the mixed doubles quarter-finals to India's Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna.
Mirza and Bopanna will face Venus Williams and Rajeev Ram in the semi-finals after the American pair beat Italy's Roberta Vinci and Fabio Fognini 6-3 7-5.
Of his singles win over Johnson, Murray said: "It was tough. I got off to a great start, then Steve started to play much better.
"We didn't get to practise before the match as much because of the rain so he may have started a bit slow because of that, but when he started to find his rhythm, it was a very tough match."
Murray will face fourth seed Kei Nishikori in the semi-finals at 16:00 BST on Saturday, after the Japanese player saved two match points to defeat France's Gael Monfils 7-6 (7-4) 4-6 7-6 (8-6).
Monfils, who made 51 unforced errors, led 4-0 in the final-set tie-breaker but double-faulted on his second match point.
Spain's Rafael Nadal, the 2008 Olympic singles champion, meets Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina in the other semi-final.
Britain out of mixed doubles
Murray, along with Laura Robson, won a silver in the mixed doubles at the London 2012 Olympics, but his hopes of reaching the Rio final ended on Friday.
Murray and Watson only found out they were in the competition 45 minutes before their opening match, when Romanians Florin Mergea and Monica Niculescu pulled out.
The British duo defeated Spain's David Ferrer and Carla Suarez Navarro 6-3 6-3 in the first round on Thursday but lost in straight sets in the quarter-final to fourth seeds Bopanna and Mirza.
The other British pair in the mixed doubles, Johanna Konta and Jamie Murray, lost in the opening round.
Puig aims for Puerto Rico's first gold
Puerto Rico's Monica Puig moved into the women's singles final with a 6-4 1-6 6-3 win over two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic.
Puig, 34th in the world, will play Germany's Angelique Kerber, who beat USA's Madison Keys 6-3 7-5 in Saturday's final.
Puerto Rico, which has been facing a financial crisis, has won eight Olympic medals, but no gold medals and no medals in tennis.
"It would be unbelievable and it would be the biggest honour in the world," said Puig.
"The island is full of such bad news all the time, so every time there's a Games and somebody from the island wins a medal everything stops and I know how happy people get."
Hingis in final after 20 year absence
Martina Hingis, 35, has reached the women's doubles final, 20 years after she reached the second round of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
The Swiss five-time Grand Slam beat winner Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka of the Czech Republic 5-7 7-6 (7-3) 6-2 in Friday's semi-final, alongside partner Timea Bacsinszky.
Hlavackova was hit in the eye by the ball after a Hingis shot and required lengthy treatment, but was able to play on.
- Published18 August 2016
- Published3 August 2016
- Published19 July 2016
- Published3 August 2016