BEIJING — An ankle injury forced Canada’s Milos Raonic out of the China Open on Saturday.
Grigor Dimitrov eased into the final with a walkover against the third-seeded Raonic, who injured his ankle during his quarter-final victory against Pablo Carreno Busta on Friday.
Top-seeded Andy Murray beat fifth-seeded David Ferrer 6-2, 6-3 to reach his ninth final of the season. Murray lost his serve to go 2-1 down before winning five straight games to take the opening set. He has yet to drop a set this week.
Murray, who took over the No. 1 seeding when Novak Djokovic withdrew, is at the China Open for the third time, and has improved each time: He reached the quarter-finals on debut, and the semifinals in 2014.
Murray leads Dimitrov 7-3 in head-to-head meetings.
On the women’s side, Johanna Konta assured herself of a place in the next WTA top-10 rankings — the first British woman to do so since Jo Durie in 1984 — after defeating Madison Keys in three sets.
The 11th-seeded Konta beat eighth-seeded Keys 7-6 (1), 4-6, 6-4 with the American winning only 37 per cent of points on her second service.
Ranked 14th, Konta faces Agnieszka Radwanska in the final. The third-seeded Pole beat 16th-seeded Elina Svitolina of Ukraine 7-6 (3), 6-3.
