Rafael Nadal was in imperious form as he crushed Andy Murray at the World Tour Finals yesterday with an impressive 6-4, 6-1 victory at London’s O2 Arena.
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In the second set, Murray made 16 unforced errors to Nadal s three and won just 10 percent of the points on his second serve as the Spaniard raced away with the match.
The 30-year-old Swiss has won six of their 14 meetings, including their two most recent Grand Slam encounters, at the US Open in 2010 and 2013.
Andy Murray has given British tennis fans a boost ahead of the Davis Cup final by playing down fears of a hamstring injury. All very odd. It was explained as “I had a few hair in my eye and I wanted to get rid of it”.
But the haircut provided no advantage, with Murray losing the first set 6-4 and eventually losing to Nadal in straight sets (6-4 6-1).
If Murray wins, he is into the semi-finals of the ATP World Tour Finals and retains his world No2 ranking going into the Australian Open in January.
Murray handed Nadal one of his most painful losses this year, crushing the out-of-sorts left-hander in front of his home supporters at the Madrid Masters in May.
Murray raised eyebrows when he whipped a pair of scissors out of his bag to trim his hair during the first set, but was bemused when asked if that showed his mind had already strayed to next week’s Davis Cup final. “I wouldn’t be able to deliver especially against with Nadal playing that well”. Murray will play Wawrinka on the same day.
The effort at staying competitive in the first set seemed to come at a mental and physical cost in the second, leaving Murray flat. I played a very good first game.
However, Djokovic said: “I take it as a compliment, obviously”.
“I wasn’t really helping myself”.
Wawrinka blazed a forehand to fall 5-3 behind in the opener and Nadal wrapped up the set with an ace.
Speaking after the match, the Dunblane ace said: “I think that he was hitting the ball extremely well today from the back of the court”. Happy for that. Just want to try to keep working the same way to keep confirming that I am in the completely right direction. I think a lot of the media had a lot of doubts about him.
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Nishikori burst into life midway through the opening set to turn a 3-1 deficit into a 4-3 lead but Federer dug his heels in to level again and took the first set when his opponent netted a backhand. Although I got broken in the second game, it was a good game.
