Four-time defending champion Rafael Nadal improved to 28-1 lifetime at the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters on Saturday with his 26th straight win at the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tennis tournament.
The top-seeded Spaniard defeated fourth seed Andy Murray of Scotland for the seventh time in 10 meetings with a 6-2, 7-6(4) win in two hours and 10 minutes for a place in Sunday’s final against third seed Novak Djokovic of Serbia, who beat No. 13 seed Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland in the other semi-final.
"I am very happy about my match," said Nadal. "I played much better today than the other days. So that's a good match for the final. I'm very happy to be in this final. Very happy to beat Andy because always a very good player. Very tough.
" [It] always is a very tough, tough match (against Djokovic). He's a good player. I think he's playing well. He is having a very good tournament. Sure, I have to play my best tennis if I want to have chances to win. So I'm going to try to play aggressively and try my best. I know it's going to be tough, but I expect to play like today or a little bit better."
It was always going to be a tough ask for Murray to beat Nadal, who hadn’t lost a tour-level clay-court semi-final since July 2003. After all Murray was appearing in his first semi-final on the terre battue, while Nadal was contesting his 24th clay-court semi-final since losing to his fellow Mallorcan Carlos Moya in Umag six years ago.
It took Nadal nine points to impose himself on the match, when at 30-0 on the Murray serve the ATP World Tour Champion turned defence into all-out attack with some perfectly placed sliced backhands before sending a forehand winner fizzing into the advertising hoardings.
After 16 minutes Nadal had a 2-0 lead, but smash and forehand errors in the third game handed Murray an immediate break back. Nadal has been susceptible to early service breaks this week – as witnessed in matches against Juan Ignacio Chela, qualifier Nicolas Lapentti and wild card Ivan Ljubicic – but the 22 year old will lose that rust in the next few weeks as he travels to ATP World Tour stops in Barcelona and Rome in search of more silverware.
Nadal, who has ranked No. 1 in the South African Airways 2009 ATP Rankings since 18 August 2008, played an aggressive fourth game on the Murray serve winning four straight points to finish with a smash winner for a 3-1 lead. The first set was won in 37 minutes, with Nadal winning 57 per cent of points on return of serve enabling him to break serve three times from seven opportunities.
Nadal looked certain of clinching his 28th win of the 2009 ATP World Tour season when he broke Murray for a 3-1 lead, but in the ninth game Britain’s first Monte-Carlo semi-finalist since Tim Henman in 2002 came to life after saving one match point. He went on to level the score line at 5-5 with successive forehand winners.
Both players held on to take the second set to a tie-break, which Nadal looked certain to win comfortably when he led 3-0 with two services to come. But once again Murray proved why he could become Britain’s highest-ranked player in the Open Era, rushing Nadal into error with well-placed groundstroke winners struck from inside the baseline. Ultimately Nadal seized control, winning successive points from 5-4 to clinch his 137th clay-court win in four years. Only four players have beaten the Spaniard on clay courts in that period.
"I think he's the greatest clay court player ever," praised Murray. "At the start I made too many mistakes. I was trying to hit too many winners from the wrong position. Then at the end of the match I started to play properly. I played the ball, when I was out of position, very high over the net, gave myself time to recover and dictated a lot of points. In the tie-break, got a little bit unlucky. I mean, we played two great points. He won both of them with great shots. It's been a great week for me. I didn't have huge expectations coming in. [I] look forward to the next tournament
In trying to shed light on how to beat Nadal on clay, Murray said: "You've got to play great, serve well and concentrate the whole way through. If you give him one chance, he's probably the best at taking them and making you pay for sort of lapses."
Nadal takes a 22-1 lifetime record in clay-court finals into Sunday’s championship-match. His only loss came to Federer at Hamburg in May 2007. Only Ilie Nastase (28), Ivan Lendl (28), Manuel Orantes (30), Bjorn Borg (30), Thomas Muster (40) and Guillermo Vilas (45) have won more clay-court trophies in the Open Era.
Against Djokovic he will try to win his 34th ATP World tour title (34-9 lifetime), which would tie him with Michael Chang for 15th place in the Open Era title-leaders list. Nadal will be meeting Djokovic for the 16th time. He holds an 11-4 lead, having won all six clay-court matches.
Former ATP Director Mike Davies remains the last Briton to reach the Monte-Carlo final in 1960 (l. to Gimeno). Murray, a winner of three ATP World Tour titles this year, dropped to 29-3 on the season. He is now 14-15 lifetime on clay courts.
(From Website : http://www.atpworldtour.com/TENNIS/1/EN/NEWS/NEWSARTICLE_3257.ASP)
