Olympics Gold Medal Match Preview: Federer vs. Murray

© Getty ImagesAndy Murray congratulates Roger Federer after the Wimbledon final four weeks ago.

Top-seeded Swiss Roger Federer will play third seed Andy Murray of Great Britain in gold medal match of the London 2012 Olympics Tennis Event on Sunday at 2 p.m. local time (9 a.m. EST).

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GOLD MEDAL MATCH

[1] Roger Federer (SUI) vs [3] Andy Murray (GBR) – Series Tied 8-8

Four weeks ago, the pair met in The Championships final at Wimbledon. Roger Federer won 4-6, 7-5, 6-3, 6-4 for a record-equalling seventh title at the All England Club and 17th major trophy overall.

Federer is competing at his fourth Olympic Games. He will be bidding to emulate his Swiss compatriot Marc Rosset, who won the singles gold medal at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.

He is also bidding to become the third male player to complete the 'Golden Slam' of four major championship titles and the Olympic singles gold medal. Should Federer beat Murray he would join Andre Agassi (1996 Atlanta) and Rafael Nadal (2008 Beijing).

Andy Murray, playing at his second Olympic Games, will be attempting to become Great Britain’s first Olympic men’s singles tennis medallist for 100 years. At the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, Charles Dixon won the silver medal in the indoor competition. Josiah Ritchie was the last British singles gold medallist at the 1908 London Olympics.

Federer has a 51-6 match record on the season, which includes five titles at the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament in Rotterdam (d. del Potro), the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships (d. Murray), ATP World Tour Masters 1000 events at the BNP Paribas Open (d. Isner) and the Mutua Madrid Open (d. Berdych), and Wimbledon.

The 25-year-old Murray has compiled a 37-10 match record this year. He won the Brisbane International (d. Dolgopolov) and finished runner-up at the Sony Open Tennis (l. to Djokovic), Dubai and Wimbledon.

GOING FOR GOLD

Here is a look at Federer and Murray’s route to the gold medal match.

WHAT THE PLAYERS SAID

Federer: "He got amazing crowd support in the Wimbledon final. I was able to handle that. But there's never a guarantee. I don't know how much the crowd plays into the outcome of the match really, because he's such a great player anyway."

Murray: "Coming here with the motivation of playing in the Olympics and with the support that I have had, has been all the motivation that I needed. I am so happy for being in the final and try and go one further. We're both playing very good tennis just now so I'm going to have to go out and play a very great match."

BRONZE MEDAL MATCH

[8] Juan Martin del Potro (ARG) vs [2] Novak Djokovic (SRB) – Djokovic Leads 4-1

Juan Martin del Potro, who made his Olympic Games debut at London 2012, faces Novak Djokovic, who beat American James Blake 6-3, 7-6(4) for the bronze medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The pair has never met on a grass-court before.