US Open: Jamie Murray and Martina Hingis through to mixed doubles final

Jamie Murray and Martina Hingis are one win away from securing their second consecutive mixed doubles Grand Slam title. The Scot and the Swiss, who won Wimbledon in their first tournament together earlier in the summer, are through to the US Open final here thanks to a 6-4, 7-6 victory over Romania’s Horia Tecau and Coco Vandeweghe, of the United States.

In Saturday's final Murray and Hingis will take on New Zealand’s Michael Venus and Taipei’s Hao-Ching Chan, who beat Anastasia Rodionova and Oliver Marach 6-1, 7-6.

Murray and Hingis played together for the first time at Wimbledon and have never lost a match. They have had some tight contests here and were again pushed hard in their semi-final, but on each occasion have kept their nerve when under pressure.

Vandeweghe had been on court less than 18 hours earlier, when she had lost her singles semi-final to Madison Keys, and took time to find her rhythm. The American dropped her serve to 15 in her first service game, which proved to be the only break of the opening set. Vandeweghe and Tecau had five break points in the set but were unable to convert any of them.

In the fifth game of the second set Murray held his serve from 0-40 down and played superbly in the next game, winning successive points with a stunning half-volley and then a backhand return winner down the line as Vandeweghe was broken for the second time. However, Hingis then dropped her serve as Tecau and Vandeweghe levelled at 4-4.

Vandeweghe and Tecau had two set points in the tie-break when they led 6-4 after Murray put an attempted drop shot in the net, but the Scot saved the first with a service winner and Vandeweghe squandered the second when she missed a volley. A Murray volley saved a third set point at 6-7 and at 9-8 the Scot’s unreturned serve secured victory after an hour and 30 minutes.

Hingis said after the match that Murray had carried her for a set and a half, but the Scot insisted: “Martina made some great shots at the end there – balls that were on the baseline, super-tough to get back off big returns - and just found a way through.”

The Scot was asked about the secret of their success. “Pick the best partner,” he smiled. “We’ve played a lot of great stuff. At Wimbledon we played amazingly well in all the matches. Here we’ve fought really hard through a couple of matches. Again today it was super-close. We saved some set points otherwise we were going to be in tie-break again.”

Hingis is also through to the women’s doubles final. The Swiss and her Taiwanese partner, Yung-Jan Chan, beat Sania Mirza and Shuai Peng 6-4, 6-4. In the final they will meet Lucie Hradecka and Katerina Siniakova, who beat their fellow Czechs Lucie Safarova and Barbora Strycova 6-2, 7-5.

Tecau won the men’s doubles title earlier in the day alongside his Dutch partner, Jean-Julien Rojer, beating the Spaniards Feliciano Lopez and Marc Lopez 6-4, 6-3 in the final.

Rojer wore a shirt showing a picture of the Statue of Liberty in what he said was a message about peace and freedom in the aftermath of last month's violence at a rally of neo-Nazis and white nationalists in Charlottseville, Virginia. He said the shirt was part of a clothing line made by a friend.

“The idea came after the tragic incident in Charlottesville, and we came up with this line, promoting peace and freedom and liberty,” Rojer said. “Hopefully we're moving in that direction. I've been here since I'm 12 years old and I'm happy they let me in and I got to do my job here. So hopefully we will create those opportunities for everybody.”

He added: “I just wanted to have the conversation going [by] promoting freedom and justice, liberty, for everybody on gender issues, on racial issues.”