Most people figured this was the end of the road for Andy Murray.  With a very solid performance against Robin Soderling, Nadal appeared to have cleaned up his game.  In any case, Murray was still playing with an injury.

This match opened up much like the Troicki match.  Although Murray won his first serve game pretty easily, he was broken in his next serve game.  Murray was not playing nearly as aggressive as he normally does against Nadal.  He was also throwing in drop shots.  When Nadal was up 5-2 and Murray looked like his ankle was bothering him, it looked like it might be a quick day.

But Murray managed to break back to 5-4.  However, Nadal was able to hold serve and take the first set.

There were 5 breaks of serve in the second set.  Murray had plenty of chances to break, but as he gave himself opportunities two things would happen.  Nadal would hit an aggresive shot and win the point or Murray would attempt to his an aggressive shot and miss.  Indeed, Murray might have taken a set or two if he could pull the trigger more reliably.

In the third set, Nadal secured a break in the middle of the set and that was all Nadal needed to win.  Despite the straight set win, the match lasted about 3 hours.

Nadal didn’t look particularly sharp against Murray, but Murray seems to do that to Nadal.  Nadal just wins enough of the right points.

Nadal is now into his sixth French Open final looking to equal Borg’s record of six French Opens.  At the moment, Federer has a 2 set to 1 lead over Djokovic.  Apparently, Federer had many break opportunities in the first two sets, and although he didn’t capitalize on many of them, he did win the two sets.  In the third set, Djokovic cleaned up his own game and avoided getting a break point on his own serve.

Federer appears to be using slice on the backhand to change up the rhythm rather than play full out aggressive tennis.