DUAL grand slam champion Andy Murray spoiled Milos Raonic’s history-making bid in a five-set thriller on Friday night to give himself a fifth crack at an Australian Open title.

The second seed and four-time runner-up will face world No.1 Novak Djokovic on Sunday night in a repeat of last year’s final after also meeting in Open deciders in 2011 and 2013.

Raonic, 25, was on the verge of becoming the first Canadian man to reach a grand slam singles decider when he went two-sets-to-one up, but a suspected groin injury stopped him in his tracks.

The injury saw the No.13 seed leave the court between the third and fourth sets and he winced his way through the rest of the contest with his weapons blunted.

Murray showed no mercy to force a deciding set then ultimately trampled Raonic 4-6 7-5 6-7 (4-7) 6-4 6-2 in a sad finish to a high-quality, four-hour affair.

“It was tough, because I’d played well in that (third) set, but in the tiebreak he didn’t miss one first serve and it’s one of the best serves in tennis,” Murray said.

“It’s frustrating when you don’t have much say in points, but I started to get a slightly better read on his serve as the match went on and I made a few more returns and that was the key.

“He definitely slowed down in the fifth set, which is unfortunate for him. It would have been nice to play a more competitive fifth set, because he was struggling with his movement and serve a bit.

“The fourth set he was still moving pretty good to the end, but I got a bit lucky with that. You just have to focus on your side of the court as much as you can.”

Murray has won 18 of his last 22 five-set matches to establish himself as one of the sport’s marathon men, arguably behind only Djokovic.

He will need to be at his very best, and almost certainly better than he was against Raonic, to solve the Djokovic riddle and swell his grand slam title haul to three.

Djokovic produced a tennis master class on Thursday night to defeat 17-time grand slam titlist Federer, and goes into the final knowing he has won 21 of his 30 meetings with Murray.

“A lot of things are important when you’re playing the best players in the world. You can’t afford to do anything poorly and you have to execute your game plan well,” Murray said.

“Novak is playing extremely well – the last couple of matches in particular – and he loves playing on this court … hopefully this time there is a different result.”

Raonic immediately showed he was up for the fight, breaking Murray to love in the opening game with a series of super-charged forehands before rallying to hold from 0-40 on his own serve.

That early effort paved the way to a one-set lead, with the former world No.4’s developing arsenal holding Murray at bay.

Raonic has always boasted a fearsome serve, but his other major ally – his forehand – looks even better and is suddenly complemented by an efficient net game and greater prowess from the baseline.

Murray finally broke Raonic in the 12th game of the second set to officially issue his challenge, but his rival responded by dropping just five service points in the third set, which he won in a tiebreak.

But rather than that being Raonic’s killer blow, a more telling moment was to come. The Canadian’s medical timeout for an upper-leg problem altered where the contest seemed headed.

His movement and first-serve speed suffered, and Murray pounced in the seventh game to break him to love then survived back-to-back break points in the 10th game to force a fifth set.

That proved Raonic’s last-ditch attempt at victory, with the final set a Murray procession.