Wimbledon 2012: Andy Murray is the new Bunny Austin How the English cringed as sun-burnished Californians, icy Swedes, histrionic New Yorkers and mighty Spaniards came to dominate tennis in the decades after Fred Perry's last triumph here in 1936. All the home crowd could do was applaud nicely. And queue. One of those dominant foreigners has been the magisterial Roger Federer, who became the first man to reach eight Wimbledon men's finals with his surprisingly comfortable victory over Novak Djokovic in the day's other semi-final. If Murray thought crossing the Rubicon of the last four was hard - at his fourth consecutive attempt - wait till he sees the debonair Federer staring back across the net. With all the ease and charm of a Hollywood matinee idol, Federer is closing in on his 17th major title and seventh Wimbledon crown, which would place him level with "Pistol" Pete Sampras. The last British Wimbledon men's finalist might have been sent from the pages of PG Wodehouse in 1938. Bunny Austin sounds like a hoot. Murray, though, has had to walk through fire to get there. He swayed off the grass covered in the best London soil from several falls. In his own words he "managed to hang tough enough" to beat Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in four sets, coasting through the first two before encountering the familiar anxiety of one who has never looked entirely comfortable leading the dance. Tsonga performed in sparkling patches. He is one of those players who knows what brilliance is but keeps touching it and letting it go. With more consistent application he would be mixing it with the best. Falling two sets to love behind brought his competitive instincts to the fore. Sometimes adversity works better than opportunity. Tsonga took the third set 6-3, dropped his serve in the fourth and then broke back as a seemingly comfortable victory for Murray descended into more torture. Tim Henman, who also contested four Wimbledon semi-finals, overachieved. He travelled beyond the limits of his power. Murray was in danger of underachieving. Better equipped than Henman for the modern game, he was at risk of being remembered as a nearly-man with the wrong birth year - the fourth best player in the gilded age of Federer, Djokovic and Rafael Nadal, whose premature departure here opened the road for Murray to reach tomorrow's climax. This will be his fourth grand slam final following the 2008 US Open (where he lost to Federer), the 2010 Australian Open (Federer again) and the 2011 Australian Open (Djokovic). But Wimbledon is many levels up. National prestige is at stake. The annual Friday flame-out took a year off. There were new emotions to confront: surprise, delight, hope. The Sunday schedule of watching the trophy board a plane for exotic lands will need rewriting to incorporate - wait for it - British involvement. Generations have marched to war and the economy has risen and crashed many times since the days of Perry and Austin. There are echoes of the 1930s in today's financial crash. If we knew in 1938 what we know now Hitler would not have been appeased. Nor would the Lawn Tennis Association have been allowed to waste so much time and money in British sport's most dysfunctional talent factory. All that can be pushed aside now. Murray is not the fretful, slightly studenty enigma we thought we might file away with Henman. Apart from a troubled start to the third set he controlled this match, rather than letting it control him, as he has so often. He set about Tsonga with the conviction of a player who knows he is the superior protagonist in all areas: ranking, titles won (22 to 8), prize-money and head-to-head. In that sense Murray looked into a chasm. A failure to exploit Nadal's early exit would have opened him up to a new charge of temperamental softness. Instead he was so authoritative against David Ferrer in the quarter-finals and Tsonga here that the BBC must have reached for the Guns of Navarone in a panic to fill their evening schedules. The sequence of Nadal-Djokovic finals is broken. Federer is not quite in the autumn of his years but these are certainly late August days. He is 30 now and his first Wimbledon title came nine years ago, against Mark Philippoussis. All weekend Murray will have to listen to people say this is the chance of a lifetime to cut down the greatest of all racket men. He would be sensible not to listen. Federer's experience, ring craft, subtlety, aura and mental strength will all confront the new Bunny. But nor can there be a slackening of Murray's resolve. He may have to quell the internal voice that says reaching the final is sufficient progress: an end in itself to keep doubters off his back. It needs to be more than that. Fred Perry, not Bunny Austin. Victory, not a supporting role.