Despite his number 3 ranking, few expected Andy Murray to make a huge impact at the French Open. Murray himself said getting to the second week of Roland Garros would be good enough for him. Obviously, he wanted to do as well as possible, but it wasn’t realistic to expect a title given his poor results on clay.

In this year’s clay season, Murray lost to Nadal in the semis of Monte Carlo (not bad), in the second round to Juan Monaco, and in the quarterfinals of Madrid to Juan Martin del Potro. To be a top clay courter, Murray would have to beat the top clay courters, and he wasn’t doing that. Murray is still vulnerable to any number of players who can outhit him on clay.

Murray had to face to biggest of big forehands. Fernando Gonzalez had entered the quarterfinals without dropping a set, and pummeled Victor Hanescu, in straight sets, powering 50 winners to 16 unforced errors. Many thought Gonzalez’s forehand would tell the story. Gonzalez does so well to hit his forehand from anywhere. When he gets into a rhythm, he’s hard to deal with. Only Federer and Nadal have had consistent success playing Gonzalez.

Gonzalez won the first set 6-3, but Murray evened it up 6-3. That made it the first set Gonzalez had lost. Gonzalez then won enough crucial points to roll over Murray 6-0 in the third. Gonzalez got a break up in the fourth set, then gave the break back, before breaking Murray again to win the fourth set, 6-4. Murray said, in an interview afterwards, that he rarely plays poorly after breaking, but this time he played poor points to go 0-40 and eventually lose serve and the match.

Up next for Gonzalez is Robin Soderling, the surprising Swede who followed up his stunning upset over Nadal with a surprisingly easy win over Davydenko. Soderling has had a few wins against Gonzalez. However, Gonzalez have won the last 4 meetings. They haven’t met since 2007.

Tomorrow, the other semifinalists will be determined. Federer will play the last Frenchman standing, Gael Monfils. Federer has not lost to Monfils (indeed, against the rest of the field, he has a gaudy 38-1 record, the sole loss to Gonzalez) in four meetings. They haven’t met since last year’s French semifinals. Roddick points to Monfils as the most athletic player playing the game. He’ll have the French crowd behind him as he tries to do something he’s never done before.

In the other quarterfinals, Juan Martin del Potro faces Tommy Robredo. They’ve only met once and del Potro beat him in 2007 Madrid (indoors), in three tough sets. This could go either way though del Potro should be favored given his consistency on clay.