Andy Murray consigned one of Wimbledon's long-standing statistics to the scrapheap when he became the first Briton to reach the All England Club men's final in 74 years with a 6-3, 6-4, 3-6 7-5 win over Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga on Friday.
Since Bunny Austin was the last home hope to reach the showpiece match in 1938, there have been 11 occasions when a British man had lost in the semi-finals.
Murray kept his wits about him, including in the third set when Tsonga's game suddenly caught fire, to end that sorry sequence and the Frenchman's resistance in two hours 47 minutes.
The fourth seed will bid to become the first British man to triumph at the citadel of grasscourt tennis since Fred Perry in 1936 when he takes on Roger Federer, who will be chasing a record-equalling seventh Wimbledon title, in the final on Sunday.
Earlier, six-times champion Roger Federer produced a vintage display to beat defending champion Novak Djokovic 6-3, 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 in the other semi-final.
The Swiss maintained his record of never losing a Wimbledon semi-final to reach a record eighth showpiece match at the All England Club with a dominant performance on Centre Court.
After the first two sets were shared in less than an hour, the match came alive in the third set.
Serving at 4-5 Djokovic blazed a smash long at 15-30 to give Federer two set points. Djokovic saved the first with a forehand but Federer seized his chance, winning a sensational 20-stroke rally with a smash to move within a set of the final.
Djokovic could not recover and dropped serve early in the fourth set as Federer rolled to his first final at the grasscourt slam since he beat Andy Roddick in 2009.
Photograph: Julian Finney/Getty Images
