French Open 2015: Novak Djokovic resists Andy Murray fight back to reach third final

Novak Djokovic will contest his third French Open final against Stan Wawrinka after successfully overcoming a spirited challenge from Andy Murray at Roland Garros.

The world number one led his long-time rival by two sets to one as play resumed at 1300 local time on 6 June after the match was suspended by an impending thunderstorm and dropped the fourth before impressively regaining his composure to take a decider and progress 6-3, 6-3, 5-7, 5-7, 6-1.

"I tried my hardest to get back into the match and it's just unfortunate that I couldn't sustain that for long enough," a visibly tired Murray told ITV after a defeat that halts his excellent run on clay.

"Novak was extremely good in the fifth set. He played better tennis than me at the end of the match."

While the 28-year-old was understandably disappointed not to have taken an opportunity to reach his first French Open final, he can certainly take encouragement from his best season to date on a notoriously tricky surface which includes impressive victories at the Munich Open and Madrid Masters in May.

"It has been my best clay court season and my best performance at the French Open. The two other times I made it to the semis I lost in straight sets," he added.

"Novak's obviously played extremely well here and hadn't dropped a set through to the semis. He hasn't lost a lot of matches this year but it's still a shame because it was my best clay court season. It just would have been nice to have got through to my first final here."

On his latest win, Djokovic said: "We tend to run each other around and play cat and mouse game, and it's tiring. It's exhausting to play him.

"But, you know, this is the kind of situations that you work for entire year, to get yourself in a position to play against one of the biggest rivals and to fight for major titles. I'm just glad I overcome the change."

Eight-time grand slam winner Djokovic lost to Rafael Nadal on both previous final appearances in 2012 and 2014, but will have a chance to complete his impressive collection against Wawrinka.

The Swiss, whose only grand slam win to date came at last year's Australian Open, beat home favourite Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 6-3, 6-7, 7-6, 6-4 in the last four.