Andy Murray finds match point long before he triumphs

Early in the second set, the British No1 looked every inch the loser. Lacklustre, bamboozled, subdued and tentative, the Scot was being royally outplayed by his Croatian opponent, who overpowered him in straight sets at the US Open after a tight opening first set. This semi-final was following the identical flight path.

Having lamely dropped an edgy, tight first set, Murray was on the precipice of being blown away again by Cilic early in the second. And then, as if by act of God, it happened. Break point up at 2-2, Murray produced the most electrifying shot men's tennis has seen since Roger Federer's through-the-legs miracle against Novak Djokovic last summer in New York.

First he did brilliantly to reach a Cilic drop shot but the Croat seemed to have saved himself with a deep lob volley to the baseline.

Murray, among the quickest guys on the tour, scampered back to reach it. That was the easy bit. The impossible bit came next as he swivelled to fire an Exocet down the line.

Instantaneously, he became a different player. Liberated from the memory that he failed to break Cilic's serve once in New York, he expressed his relief with a leonine, bulging eyed roar.

At that moment, although the match never became a stroll until the fourth set, the momentum shifted decisively.

Cilic was a different player as well. Modelled closely on the Peter Crouch template, this javelin-shaped 21-year-old is a massively talented and dangerous opponent, with his huge serve and ferocious forehand, and he started flawlessly.

Had he continued in such imperious form, he might have settled it within 15 minutes, and the psychological blow of finally losing his serve cannot be overstated. From then on, the errors crept into his ground strokes, his serve lost its venom and the mental fatigue of having come through three five setters to reach this semi began to exert itself.

The tank was visibly emptying and once Murray had levelled the match at a set apiece, the self-belief began to drain away as well.

Murray did his best to blow it in the third, handing back an early break with his sloppiest service game of the tournament. But we had already had one melodramatic turning point and were not about to be tortured with another.

He broke Cilic once again and held on for the set, and now the Croat was a palpably spent force. Totally relaxed now, Murray rattled through the fourth, unleashing another unforgettable forehand - a preposterous, Nadal-type winner off what looked like a certain Cilic winner, scythed down the line from way outside court - as he crushed the Croat's spirit.

This was not a beautiful match to behold like Tuesday's quarter-final against Nadal. This was a draining war of attrition plagiarised verbatim from the pages of Winning Ugly, the text book written by his former coach Brad Gilbert. And it was precisely what Murray needed.

Entering this semi-final match without having dropped a set, another amble would have been easier on patriotic viewers' nerves but done nothing to prepare him for a final against, we must assume, the immortal Roger Federer.

A sweaty, nail-biting and frankly mediocre performance will have honed his competitive instincts and stiffened his fighting sinew at the perfect time. He will have to play infinitely better against the Fed (or even, should there be an upset, Jo-Wilfred Tsonga).

The second serve, so much improved against Nadal, regressed to the short, swattable Achilles heel that has undone him at the highest level before. That tendency to rely on teasing errors rather than dominating with his own power, resurfaced.

Perhaps the pressure of being the hot favourite spooked him a little. But the man he beat today is anything but a mug and the colossal encouragement to be drawn from the victory is that Murray stared into the abyss and did not flinch.

In his only previous Grand Slam final, he had to face Federer barely 24 hours after completing a rain-delayed semi against Nadal.

This time he has three full days to recover. While he may need to unleash more moments of the Federesque genius that turned this match around to defeat the Swiss on Sunday, he has a glorious opportunity to achieve what no British man has done since Fred Perry in 1936.