Murray bounces Nadal out

Andy Murray put in a highly impressive performance against Rafael Nadal to move into the final of the Rogers Cup. The Scot showed signs of rediscovering his Australian Open form as he triumphed 6-3, 6-4 in a little under two hours.

After a highly impressive performance against David Nalbandian yesterday, a re-match against Nadal promised to be the pick of the semi-finals. Before the match Nadal lead the head to head eight games to three  and the Spaniard wone the pairs most recent meeting in the semi finals at Wimbledon.

Murary is often rightfully criticised for playing a relatively passive counter punching game, but this tactic doesn't work against Nadal. The Spaniard is an excellent defender and has almost unbounded stamina so to stand a chance of winning Murray has to play the part of the aggressor.


Despite opening with a double fault, Murray signalled his intent from the outset, a combination of rifled cross court backhands and inside-out forehands keeping the Spaniard off balance. Nadal doesn't move as well on hard courts as he does on clay and in yesterdays quarter final Phillipp Kohlschreiber used the tactic of hitting behind Nadal to great success. Murray repeated this trick to great effect, often leaving Nadal floundering behind the baseline.

Both players served poorly for large stretches of the match, so it wasn't surprising when Murray earned a first break point in the fourth game. Nadal scraped through with some trademark penetrating groundstrokes, but this seemed like merely a postponement of the inevitable.  The Scot had to defend break points of his own in the seventh game, saving them with a brave, line kissing forehand and a deep dipping slice.

The crucial break came in the next game. Nadal looked in control at 30-0 before Murray thrashed several huge forehands to draw level and then break clear after a prolonged baseline exchange.

Serving for the set, Murray showed no signs of nerves as he smashed down three aces to earn three set points. A double fault on the first was quickly forgotten when the Scot arrowed another massive forehand winner into the corner.

Murray continued to pressurise Nadal in the second set and when he broke in the third game it looked like the match would run away from the Spaniard. Nadal isn't the world number one for no reason though, and he showed some of his famous resilience to weather the Murray storm before breaking back at 3-2 and then holding easily.

After losing three games in a row, it was now the Scot who looked besieged. Nadal was beginning to get into a rhytm on the return and some tentative second serves were punished to bring up two more break points. This seemed to kick Murray into a higher gear and the danger was quickly averted with some more aggressive shot-making. The Scot carried this into the next Nadal service game, bringing up three break points with a series of lethal cross-court backhands. Nadal saved the first two before punting a backhand into the net.

Murray was now serving for the match and repeated the solidity seen at the tail end of the first set, serving out to 15.

This was a great result for Murray and is proof that he's refound something approaching his best form. The Scot will meet Djokovic or Federer in the final, where he will aim to become the first player to defend a Canadian Masters Shield since Andre Agassi in 1995.