Murray defeats Troicki 6-4, 6-3 to set up final in Vienna against Ferrer or Kohlschreiber

VIENNA – Andy Murray defeated Viktor Troicki of Serbia 6-4, 6-3 at the Erste Bank Open on Saturday to reach his second final of the season.

The second-seeded Murray, who won his 29th career title in Shenzhen last month, will play the winner of David Ferrer and Philipp Kohlschreiber in Sunday’s final.

“I managed to win the big points,” said Murray, who had hard-fought wins over Canada’s Vasek Pospisil and Jan-Lennard Struff in earlier rounds. “It was a bit better today. The previous matches my opponents have been big servers.”

Murray’s 50th win of the season saw him provisionally rise to eighth place — moving ahead of Canada’s Milos Raonic — in the qualifying race to the eight-man ATP Finals in London next month.

If Murray holds on to his position, he will qualify for a seventh straight year for the prestigious season-ending tournament, though he pulled out following back surgery in 2013.

The Scot improved to 6-0 against the former 12th-ranked Troicki, who is now 127th after returning from a one-year doping suspension in July.

Murray dropped serve while leading 3-2 in the opening set on the only break point he faced but was in control of the match throughout.

Troicki saved a break point 1-1 and five more at 2-2 before losing his serve but the Serb levelled the score the next game. Another break at 4-4 helped Murray win the first set, and the Scot added two more in the second to smoothly wrap up the win.