Andy Murray produced one of the best clay-court performances of his life to beat the defending champion, Stan Wawrinka, 6-4, 6-2, 4-6, 6-2, while Novak Djokovic swept aside the young Austrian upstart, Dominic Thiem, winning 6-2, 6-1, 6-4 to reach the 20th Grand Slam final of his career.
Although Andy Murray will not be satisfied with simply making the final, there should be no under-estimating the enormity of his achievement in getting there.
This was the only Grand Slam tournament where he had not made the final and he will become the first British player to contest the final here since Bunny Austin in 1937.
The only British player to have won the title is Fred Perry, who was the champion in 1935 and 1936. Murray will also equal Perry’s British record of 10 Grand Slam finals.
His voice cracking with emotion, Murray said in a post-match interview on the court: “I’m extremely proud. I never expected to reach the final here.
I had always struggled on the clay but in the last two years I’ve had some of my best results. I’m very proud to have reached the final here and I hope I can put on a good match for the crowd on Sunday.”
Andy Murray has lost 23 of his 33 matches against the world's No 1, Djokovic, but beat him in the final to win both his Grand Slam titles, at the 2012 US Open and at Wimbledon the following year.
He also won their most recent meeting, in the clay-court final at last month’s Rome Masters.
Djokovic’s four victories over Murray in Grand Slam finals have all been at the Australian Open.
Djokovic, who already has 11 Grand Slam titles to his name, will be playing in his sixth consecutive Grand Slam final.
He needs victory here to become only the eighth player in history to win all four Grand Slam titles.
He has lost in three of the last four Roland Garros finals - twice to Rafael Nadal and once to Wawrinka.
Murray said that Djokovic had been “by far the No 1 player in the world” for more than two years but added: “Anything can happen in a one-off match.”
If Murray plays as well as he did to beat the Defending Champion, Stans Wawrinka, he will have every chance.
Playing in his fourth semi-final here, the 29-year-old Scot gave an almost faultless performance.
Earlier in the tournament there were matches where he seemed to become distracted as he shouted and scowled in the general direction of his entourage, but here he was totally focused on his task. He served well and struck the ball consistently throughout.
From being a player who always said that clay presented his greatest challenge, Murray has become a master of the surface over the last two years. Since 2014 he has won three clay-court titles and lost only to Djokovic and Nadal on the surface.
Under constant assault from the power and accuracy of Murray’s ground strokes, Wawrinka was never given the chance to settle into any sort of rhythm.
The 31-year-old Swiss made 43 unforced errors to Murray’s 22 and regularly got into trouble on his serve as the Scot peppered him with potent returns. Murray converted five of his 15 break points, while Wawrinka converted one of his five.
On another cold and gloomy day, the thinking in some quarters had been that the slower and heavier conditions might be to Wawrinka’s advantage, but Murray was on his game from the start. Having saved a break point with a volley at 1-1 he broke Wawrinka in the next game, completing the job with an athletic overhead backhand.
Murray served out for the set at 5-4 but was made to work for it. Wawrinka had three break points, two of which Murray saved with unreturned serves, and saved the Scot’s first set point with a big forehand, but on the second could not keep his return in court.
After the first set had taken 53 minutes, the second flew by in just 27 minutes as Murray turned on the style after Wawrinka put an attempted drop shot in the net when he served at 1-1 and 0-40. The Swiss won only 14 points in the whole set, including just three against serve.
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