Murray Beats Nadal To Move Into Madrid Final

Andy Murray will play for his second consecutive Mutua Madrid Open final on Sunday after beating Rafael Nadal 7-5, 6-4 on Saturday. The World No. 2, who broke through against Nadal last year in Madrid to win his first ATP World Tour Masters 1000 title on clay, will play Novak Djokovic or Kei Nishikori and go for his 12^th Masters 1000 title.

The Brit controlled play for much of the match with a worldly mix of deep groundstrokes and deceptive drop shots. And when he needed to rely on his booming serve, he could. At 2-4 in the second set, Nadal had two break points to crawl his way back into the match against the No. 2 seed. But Murray climbed out of the hole, hitting a service winner to go up 5-2. The Brit hit eight aces and erased 11 of 13 break points faced during the match.

Nadal looked to be making a comeback again when he broke Murray at 3-5 in the second set. But Murray broke back to advance to Sunday’s final.

The two greats, who practiced together last week in Mallorca, have gone back and forth on clay in recent years. Murray beat Nadal in straight sets at last year’s final in Madrid. But at last month’s Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters, Nadal got the better of the Brit, coming back from a set down to win. The Spaniard also still leads their FedEx ATP Head2Head rivalry 17-7.