Murray reaches final to defend London gold

RIO DE JANEIRO — Britain's Andy Murray advanced to the men's Olympic final with a straight sets victory over Japan's Kei Nishikori Saturday, securing a chance to defend his title and become the first player to win back-to-back singles golds at the Games. In a commanding performance, the Wimbledon champion and No. 2 ranked player broke Nishikori's serve early on, breezing through the first set 6-1. After another service break early in the second set, Murray closed out the match 6-1, 6-4. Though Nishikori's speed allowed him to punch back against Murray's blazing ground strokes, the Japanese player was plagued by too many unforced errors and could not break Murray's serve. The Briton's routine win wasn't without incident. He collected a code violation from match official Carlos Ramos who believed Murray had called him a "stupid umpire". "I didn't say 'stupid umpire', I said 'stupid umpiring'. But if you want to be the star of the show, that's fine," argued Murray at a changeover. In Sunday's gold medal match, the 29-year-old Briton will face either Spain's Rafa Nadal or Argentina's Juan Martin del Potro, who play later Saturday. Murray won gold at the 2012 London Games where he defeated Switzerland's Roger Federer in the final. Two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova, meanwhile, won Olympic bronze in the women's tennis singles, defeating American seventh seed Madison Keys 7-5, 2-6, 6-2. In an untidy playoff, the two women hit a combined 87 unforced errors while Keys' challenge was undone by only converting two of her 10 break points. Later Saturday, German second seed Angelique Kerber takes on Puerto Rico's Monica Puig for the gold medal. Kerber is looking to become the second German winner of the title after Steffi Graf in 1988. Puig bids to win Puerto Rico's first Olympic gold medal having already made sure of at least a silver.