“Excited for Andy wish I could see it but THANK YOU for your live coverage,” says Fiona Tinney. You’re welcome, Fiona. It’s been a blast, and I for one can’t wait to see what happens at Roland Garros. First, though, the players move on to next week’s Italian Open, where Rafa will make one last attempt to hone his game ahead of the big one. It remains to be seen whether Murray will play in Rome after his recent exertions. Final word goes to Christine Menzies. “Congratulations,” she writes, “brilliant win … hooray, hooray!” And so say Britons everywhere, Christine. Thanks for all your emails and have a lovely evening.
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Still, Andy Murray eh? “To play Rafa in Spain is extremely tough,” says Murray with no little understatement. He wishes the great Spaniard Manolo Santana a happy birthday for today – an organiser here, he is 77 – but I’m sure the former French, Wimbledon and US Open champion has had more enjoyable evenings. Murray saves his final word for Rafa: “I’m sure in a couple of weeks you’ll be playing your best tennis again,” he says. Rafa smiles. He will certainly hope so.
Rafa is making his runner-up speech. In Spanish, naturally. He talks with typical grace, thanking the sponsors, the organisers, the crowd and congratulating Murray on “playing much better than me today”. He also wishes Andy the best of luck for Roland Garros. “It was a very important and very positive week for me,” says Nadal. “I’m looking forward to the weeks ahead and hoping to do better things.” He surely will, wherever his ranking ends up after this.
For Rafa, though, the inquest begins anew. Since his return from the illness and injury of last year, whenever we start thinking the great Spaniard has turned the corner he seems to suffer another setback. He talked after losing to Fognini in Barcelona of losing his confidence, of being unable to play without fear at the big moments. It certainly looked that way today. From the outset, he was mistiming balls, hitting short, and making uncharacteristic errors. He looks thoroughly disconsolate.
What a performance from Andy Murray. He was composed, mature, consistent and never deviated from his game plan, which was to find the right balance between defence and attack. He did that superbly, and on this form will be a real threat at the French Open. As Simon McMahon puts it: “Murray destroying Nadal. On clay. Wow. Just wow.”
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Game, set and match Andy Murray! He wins the Madrid Open 6-3, 6-2
Second set: Murray*6-2 Nadal (sets: 2-0). At 15-15, there’s a long baseline exchange. For once, Rafa – grunting heavily, almost rhythmically – comes out on top. Another false dawn? It is. Murray gets to 30-30, Rafa shanks another groundstroke, and it’s match point. In keeping with the tenor of his stuttering performance, Nadal then mishits a forehand horribly into the foot of the net. It’s game, set and match Murray. He is the 2015 Madrid Open champion!
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Second set: Murray 5-2 Nadal* (sets: 1-0). Grimacing as he goes, as well he might, Nadal somehow claws his way to another hold. But this is surely Murray’s day. “Murray is not only playing very well,” points out Abhay Phadnis, “he is doing something that very rarely happens – making Nadal look like an ordinary player. (Even as I write this, Nadal plays a terrible stroke to hand Murray his second break of the set!) Excellent to see Murray in this form – if he continues to play like this, he stands a serious chance at Roland Garros.” Indeed, Abhay – and Rafa not much chance at all unless he can improve radically on this performance.
Second set: Murray* 5-1 Nadal (sets: 1-0). Murray is relentless, he really is. Nadal is unable to tame another high, kicking serve to his backhand, the return whistling long: 15-0. The Spaniard gets some respite when Murray, whose variation on the backhand side has been central to his success today, sends a two-hander wide. That’s a collector’s item today, and the Scot then follows up with his first double-fault of the match. No matter. A penetrating serve into the body elicits a short return from Nadal, and Murray thumps away a forehand. Another long exchange goes Murray’s way – his encounters with Djokovic aside, it’s hard to remember a match when Nadal has lost out so often from the baseline – and at 40-30 it’s game point. Cue another searching forehand from Murray, and the Scot is a game away from an extraordinary victory.
Second set: Murray 4-1 Nadal* (sets: 1-0). An admirable display of defiance by Rafa, as he holds to 15 with his first ace of the match, but it would take something remarkable to turn this around now.
Second set: Murray* 4-0 Nadal (sets: 1-0). I never thought I’d see Murray put in a better shift against Nadal than he did in the last four of the US Open in 2008. He was sensational that day, bossing Nadal from the back of the court and mopping up short balls like they were going out of fashion. This, though, may just outstrip that performance. So confident and composed is Murray as he consolidates the second break, Nadal looks forlorn, like a man who has run out of ideas.
Second set: Murray 3-0 Nadal*(sets: 1-0). At deuce, Nadal runs around his backhand to club a huge reverse-crosscourt forehand past Murray. Surely the worm is about to turn? Not a bit of it, and that’s been the story of this match. Each time the Spaniard looks set to regain a foothold in proceedings, Murray just steps up again and calmly regains the advantage. He looks like a man who expects to win – confident, unruffled, full of belief. Not even a horrible drive volley into the net on break point can throw the Scot off. He steadies his focus, sends a lacerating forehand winner past Nadal, and then outrallies the defending champion for the umpteenth time. That’s a double break. The Madrid crowd seems stunned, and I know how they feel. Who would have predicted this?
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Second set: Murray* 2-0 Nadal (sets: 1-0). Murray holds to love. It was quick, decisive, and accomplished with minimal fuss. “Evening Les,” says Simon McMahon. “Andy is proving already he will be a real threat at Roland Garros. He really is a quite remarkable tennis player.” Good evening to you, Simon; couldn’t agree more. This is hugely, hugely impressive from Murray.
Second set: Murray 1-0 Nadal* (sets: 1-0). In desperate need of a better start to the second set, Rafa quickly finds himself at 30-30 courtesy of some solid returning from Murray and his own continued loose hitting. Things don’t go his way, and the Spaniard has only himself to blame. After plopping a dismal forehand into the bottom of the net to cough up a break point, he rallies to reach deuce, a venomous onslaught carrying him to the net once again. But the kind of volley that might embarrass a club player earns Murray a second break point, and this time he makes no mistake, a penetrating return into the Nadal forehand – a real feature of the match so far – giving him what could prove a vital early break.
Andy Murray wins the first set 6-3
First set: Murray* 6-3 Nadal (*denotes player who just served) Could Murray be on the verge of a first win over Nadal on clay? He has won all 26 matches in which he has gone a set up this year. His prospects of doing so again briefly looked shaky when some venomous hitting from Nadal earned him a break point at 30-40, but Murray refuses to be denied. The Brit is really bossing the proceedings from the baseline, and he pulls the Spaniard hither and thither to draw yet another mistake. It leaves him a set to the good, and Nadal with a mountain to climb, even if it is one partly of his own making.
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First set: Murray* 5-3 Nadal (*denotes player who just served) It’s been an odd feature of the match so far that Nadal’s best moments have all come at the net. He claims the first point with a lunging backhand drop volley, and goes 30-0 up with a lovely angled effort off the forehand. An unreturned serve is followed by an exquisite backhand overhead that cuts sharply across the net; you could really hear the spin on that one. Game Nadal, but he has it all to do in this set.
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First set: Murray* 5-2 Nadal (*denotes player who just served) The bad news for Murray is that Nadal seems to be finding his forehand. The good news for the Scot is that hasn’t affected the scoreline. Nadal’s footwork and aggression moved up a notch in that game, producing two spectacular winners and a couple of break points to boot. But a ferocious whipped forehand narrowly misses the mark on the first, and Murray claws his way back into the game, outrallying Nadal yet again at deuce before another Nadal forehand whistles long.
First set: Murray 4-2 Nadal* (*denotes player who just served) Much better from Nadal. At 30-0, he deals beautifully with a fine Murray return, middling a backhand approach shot before slam dunking an overhead into the crowd. He greets that success with a trademark first pump, and seconds later the game is in the bag.
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First set: Murray* 4-1 Nadal (*denotes player who just served) My oh my. Murray is playing with real authority and belief, a point he underlines with another comfortable hold. A topspin serve that kicks like the proverbial mule gives him the first point before he twice outrallies Nadal to go 40-15 up. The conditions look heavy out there, which should work in the Brit’s favour, nullifying the bite of Nadal’s whirring topspin.Murray seems unperturbed: a crisp forehand into the corner leaves Nadal stranded, and it’s another game on the board.
First set: Murray 3-1 Nadal* (*denotes player who just served) Nadal makes a belated impression on the scoreboard, claiming the game to love with some fine serving. But Murray has been serving brilliantly all week, particularly to the deuce court, and finding a way back into this set won’t be easy for the Spaniard.
First set: Murray* 3-0 Nadal (*denotes player who just served) A terrific start from Murray, who has made good on his pre-match ambition of not going for too much, too soon. He’s three games ahead in the blink of an eye, but in truth he’s done nothing spectacular so far beyond staying solid. All credit to him for that. Nadal shows signs that he may be stirring on the third point, working his way to the net again behind some ferocious topspin forehands, but he really is struggling to find his range. A shanked backhand return from the Spaniard gives Murray the game to 15.
First set: Murray 2-0 Nadal* (*denotes player who just served) This looks a nervy start from Nadal, who sends a straightforward forehand into the alley on the opening point before watching helplessly as Murray dishes out some mean treatment to a short second serve, whipping a forehand return into Nadal’s forehand corner. Another error from Nadal brings up three break points. Nadal retrieves one with a sharp foray to the net, but it’s not enough. Another unforced error from Nadal and it’s first blood to the Brit.
First set: Murray* 1-0 Nadal (*denotes player who just served) Murray has the start he would have wanted. Nadal mistimes a backhand into the net on the opening point, and two short rallies in which the Spaniard blinks first bring up 40-0. Another backhand error from Nadal gives Murray the game. Easy this tennis lark, no?
Rafa aligns his water bottles, equipment, and the courtside advertising board. It was ever thus. Murray steps up to serve, and we’re about to get underway!
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Amelie Mauresmo, who now shares coaching responsibilities with Jonas Bjorkman, looks on sternly from her position in Murray’s box. She must be delighted with his sudden surge of form on the red stuff. But make no mistake, Murray will need a good start here.
Tick-tock, tick-tock … the sound of balls being struck in the warm-up, or the clock ticking on Murray’s ambitions of causing an upset here? A little of both, I suspect …
The players are on court! Rafa strides out, racket in hand, resplendent in his electric blue hoodie and stripy red bandana. Predictably, he is warmly welcomed by the Madird crowd, whose applause he acknowledges with an emperor-like wave. Expect him to cut from emperor to gladiator once the action gets underway, though. Murray comes out next, cutting a more diffident figure after the pugnacious entrance of the home favourite.
Defeat here would send Nadal’s ranking tumbling from fourth to as low as seventh, which would certainly put the cat among the pigeons come the French Open. Djovokic, Federer and Murray must be about as thrilled at the thought of meeting Nadal in the last eight as the Spaniard himself.
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The final is due to start at 7pm local time. That’ll be in about five minutes, so far as you and I are concerned.
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So what should we expect today? Murray’s ability to find the balance between defence and aggression will be a key factor. He’ll need to be patient, certainly, but he’ll also need to do a lot more than just keep the ball in play if Nadal plays as he did against Berdych. Particularly when you consider that he’s failed to win against the Spaniard in six attempts on clay (their head-to-head record is 15-5 in favour of Nadal). Still, Murray was genuinely commanding against Nishikori, serving and returning well and looking positively sprightly for a man who has played so much tennis over the past fortnight. He has a chance, and he can take heart from the fact that he pushed Nadal mighty lose in Rome last year. On the other hand, the Spaniard is the defending champion – victory today would give him a third successive title at the Caja Mágica and fifth overall – and crushed Murray in the last four at Roland Garros last year. Nadal also loves playing before the passionate home crowd in Madrid. And after suffering a crisis of confidence following the Fognini defeat in Barcelona, he looks a player transformed. Only Grigor Dimitrov, the talented Bulgarian, has been able to take a set off Nadal in Madrid, and the man from Manorca is suddenly sounding a whole lot more upbeat than he was. “I am serving well, maybe a little bit better than usual,” he said after beating Berdych 7-6, 6-1 on Saturday. “But what makes me confident with myself is not really the serve … It’s how consistent I am, and especially how well I was hitting the forehand.”
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So what of Murray, I hear you ask? Well, the path to his second clay-court final in two weeks (one week, technically, given that the Munich Open was held over to Monday due to rain) has been nothing if not steep and thorny. The newly-married Brit has had to negotiate a slew of matches to get here – this will be his eighth in 11 days – including a three-set duel against Philipp Philipp Kohlschreiber (their second meeting in three days) that finished at 3am local time, and was followed by two matches in one day on Thursday. No wonder Murray, speaking in the immediate aftermath of his hugely impressive semi-final win over Kei Nishikori, expressed relief that the final was scheduled for an evening start. Not that he was going overboard about his prospects, mind. “It’s going to be incredibly difficult,” said the Scot. “If it was in the day it would have been tough, so being in the evening helps. Playing against him on clay in Spain is a big test. The crowd is incredibly pumped for him when gets on the court, so I have to be there mentally and play a smart match. You obviously need to play aggressive tennis, but it’s important not to go for too much. It’s easy when you play against someone like Rafa on a clay court – or Novak on a hard court, or Roger on grass – to feel like you need to do too much, almost. It’s important that you have good tactics, trust your shots. Hopefully I’ll play well.”
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Hello everybody and welcome. In years gone by, Rafael Nadal would have hoovered up just about every European clay-court title in sight by now, but these are uncharacteristically lean times for the nine-time French Open champion. In what feels like a weird inversion of normality, each of the chief pretenders to Rafa’s throne has a title under his belt since spring, while the king of clay has none. Novak Djokovic beat the Spaniard en route to victory in Monte Carlo. Kei Nishikori won in Barcelona, where Nadal slumped to a third-round defeat against Fabio Fognini to record his earliest exit from the tournament in 12 years, while in Istanbul it was Roger Federer’s turn to bag the honours. Hell, even Andy Murray, Nadal’s opponent today, has claimed a clay-court title this year, and that’s never happened before. But Rafa, who was once wont to sweep all before him bar the courts themselves in the prelude to Roland Garros, has nothing to show on the red stuff in 2015 apart from the title he won in Buenos Aires in early March. And boy, does he seem unhappy about it. The Spaniard has had the aura of a man possessed this past week, putting Steve Johnson of the US and Italy’s Simone Bolelli to the sword, extending his unbeaten record against Grigor Dimitrov, the Bulgarian 10th seed, to six matches, and making Spanish omelette of Tomas Berdych after a tough opening set in Saturday’s semi-finals.
Les will be here shortly. In the meantime, here’s how Andy Murray reached the final:
Andy Murray will face Rafael Nadal in the final of the Madrid Open after maintaining his recent magnificent form on clay to defeat Kei Nishikori. The second seed claimed a 6-3, 6-4 win in an hour and 37 minutes as he looks to follow up on his first clay title at the BMW Open in Munich last Monday.
To achieve that Murray will have to get past the home favourite and clay master Nadal, who beat Tomas Berdych 7-6 (7-3), 6-1 in their semi-final.
After beating Nishikori, the Scot claimed the win was a big confidence booster before the French Open.
The first two games went with serve and while Murray earned a break point at 30-40 in the third, Nishikori was able to see off the danger. The Japanese had a chance for a break of his own in the sixth game but Murray was able to see that off and took the next game to take a 4-3 lead.
The Scot held in the next game and then broke his opponent again to take the opening set in 45 minutes. He made it four games in a row at the start of the second before Nishikori at last got back on the board and then earned himself a break point on the next Murray serve.
Murray saw off that break point but could not hold out for a second and all of a sudden Nishikori led 2-1 in the set. He could not maintain that momentum, though, and Murray levelled at the second time of asking in the next game.
The next five games went with serve, although Nishikori had to see off a break point in the eighth, and he could not repeat the feat in the 10th as Murray closed out the win.
