David Nalbandian had to be the hottest player of the quarterfinalists playing the Rogers Cup today.  Prior to this, Nalbandian won two key matches in Davis Cup against Russia in Russia beating Nikolay Davydenko and Mikhail Youzhny.  He came to Washington DC last week and won the event over Marcos Baghdatis in the finals.

At Toronto, he beat three tough opponents in succession: David Ferrer, Tommy Robredo, and Robin Soderling.  It seemed his aggressive groundstroke style plus his laser returns plus his 2-0 head-to-head record would be enough to topple world number 4, Andy Murray.  Murray, after all, had not won a tournament all year long, and had a weird match against Gael Monfils in the previous round where he took the first set easily but dropped the second set at love before winning in 3 sets.

Blame it on fatigue on Nalbandian’s part, or blame it on Murray’s need to reach the finals to stay at number 4, a by-product of being the defending champion.  Whatever the reason, Murray came out on fire and Nalbandian looked flat.  Playing a style of tennis that he’s normally reserved for Nadal, Murray played aggressive to Nalby’s forehand and his used superior speed to chase down balls that would have gone for winners against pretty much anyone else.  In addition, Murray hit big serves when he needed to.  This effort lead to only one break point on his serve, as Murray was not broken the entire match, and won handily, 6-2, 6-2.

Up next for the Scot, who might decide to play without a coach (and has said he wouldn’t consider hiring one until after the US Open) is the man who beat him at Wimbledon: Rafael Nadal.  Nadal had a rusty match against Wawrinka, but Wawrinka couldn’t pull the trigger and close Nadal in the second set.  Nadal regained form and won the second set easily enough.  Nadal then beat Anderson, with an easy first set, but followed by a tiebreak in the second.  Nadal had a brief blip in his game when he was up a break in the second but then got broken back.

Well, that presumes Nadal wins over Kohlschreiber, a man he’s never lost to.  This match is up right now with Federer and Djokovic playing this evening.  Nadal has been playing evening matches so far.  Djokovic has likely requested to play in the evenings due to his problems dealing with the heat.