The momentum appeared to swing Nadal’s way when he responded by taking Murray’s serve, but it was the Scot who took the first set with a winning forehand that broke the home favourite for a second time.
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The Serb has now won 29 Masters 1,000 titles, one more than Spain’s Rafael Nadal.
When these two last faced each other on clay, which came in last year’s French Open semis, the Brit took Djokovic to five thrilling sets before finally running out of gas.
Djokovic dominated the first set but it was even from then until the end, with both players faltering on decisive moments.
“That’s why he’s No. 1 just now”, Murray said. When asked if he thought if it was a bit unfair with the scheduling to have such a difference in time between the first and second semi-final, he replied, ” Yeah, it is a little bit unusual, I must say.
Murray beat the Spaniard in last year’s final to lift the trophy and the two squared off again on Saturday- with Nadal having won their most recent encounter at Monte Carlo last month.
“I think mentally it’s good to go through these particular situations for confidence”. In the tie-break I think I played a very solid tie-break under the circumstances, and knowing that I missed four match points was very solid after that.
Murray, who sent down eight aces and saved 11 of 13 break points, said he was “going back in the right direction again” after losing early in Indian Wells and Miami in March.
“He has played two tournaments on clay this year”.
“Novak has had a lot of wins against me in the past couple of years unfortunately, but he has done some great things and also deserved this win”, Murray said.
This marks the second time Djokovic and Murray will meet in 2016.
Nadal won only four points on his second serve all day against Murray on Saturday and if Murray can get his first serve working better than it was against Rafa we could have a match on our hands here.
“I think I used my forehand pretty good throughout the match, I was able to push him back towards the baseline”. Last year, Nole prevailed in five sets in the semi-final at Roland Garros against the Briton.
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Speaking about the increased speed on his second serve, Murray added: “It’s easy to say just hit the serve harder but sometimes you need to make technical adjustments and have coaching on that. I played a medium level, which was not enough to beat Murray”.
