Nadal took the first two sets; Murray fought back to take the third started strong in the fourth, banging out serves up to 134 mph and hitting winners to both courts. For every winner, however Murray hit an error, while Nadal played near-perfect defense.
Fitness and focus were the Spanish champion’s edge.
“The beginning of the fourth was very important because Andy had a tougher match, yesterday, than me,” Nadal told CBS Sports. “He had break point at the beginning of the fourth so I saved that. And after that I think I started to play more aggressive.
“I think I played my best match of this year, here. I am very happy to be in the final.”
The defending champion broke Murray’s serve in the fourth game of the set, forced him to fight off three break points in the sixth; Nadal’s defense stayed nearly flawless while Murray couldn’t find the court with a first serve.
Murray began clutching his lower back between points; injured or just sore, he looked a little ragged, while his opponent looked fresh.
Murray went down at love in his final service game, unable to score on his own serve. Nadal looked like classic Nadal, running around forehands and blasting them back to the baseline covering the court side-to-side, while making few mistakes.
Mistakes were key to the match; while Nadal only hit three quarters as many winners as Murray (31–44) he had half as many unforced errors (23–55.) Even with great movement and a 134-mph serve, Murray couldn’t give away that many points and beat the world’s #2 player.
#2 will face #1 in the finals, a prospect Nadal might find daunting.
“This year I am not having good luck against [Djokovic,]” he told CBS. “I‘ve played already five finals and I’ve lost all of them. Hopefully, New York will help me this time.”
When asked how he might adjust his game to handle the lanky Serb, Nadal replied, “I didn’t find the solution yet, but I will try my best.
I played last year in the finals against him—I think I played a fantastic match. So, I will try the same—I will try to play crazy with my forehand and I have to be very solid with my serve because he was [taking advantage of] this—he is unbelievable.”
The Spanish champion closed with a word about Sunday’s 9/11 anniversary.
“Tomorrow is a very tough day for all the people in New York. I just want to express all my support to the families of the victims … I have terrible memories from that day.”
