Murray begins from where he left off in Rio

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 on Sunday.

Cilic has reached a first Masters 1000 final on his 71st attempt. DONISON SUFFERS BLOW KOLHAPUR: Ricky Donison suffered a double blow that saw him surrender the lead after the fourth and penultimate round of the 13th JK Tyre FMSCI National Rotax Max Championship here on Sunday.

Donison of BPC Racing, who won the earlier three rounds, couldn’t come to terms with the wet conditions and lost his edge in the Senior Max category.

Chennai’s Vishnu Prasad jumped into the lead in the battle for the championship by finishing third in the pre-final and fourth in the final. The round was won by Mumbai’s Nayan Chatterjee (Meco Racing) .

MURRAY HAS HAD TO OVERCOME FATIGUE ASSOCIATED WITH THE QUICK TURNAROUND FROM THE RIO GAMES

ABHIBAN TO STAR

ABU DHABI: Grandmaster B Adhiban will spearhead the Indian challenge in the Abu Dhabi Masters Chess tournament that gets underway here.

Starting as the third seed, Adhiban will take on Grandmaster Alexander Raetsky from Russia in what is expected to be a keenly contested game.