Monte Carlo – SF

David “Pics” Ferrer [6] advanced to his second ‘Masters 1000’ final with a rather comfortable win over Jurgen Melzer 6-3, 6-2. “Pics” took a revenge on Melzer [9] for two Parisian defeats last year (Roland Garros & Paris-Bercy) in 78 minutes. The Austrian began the match promisingly with a 3:1* ‘deuce’ lead, but Ferrer won five straight games. Similar thing happened in the 2nd set, ‘2:1’ for Melzer and five straight games for Ferrer (Melzer had two break points in the final game, one of them “Pics” saved after a very long rally at the net). Ferrer reaches the final in impressive style, no-one won against him more than three games in a set! Ferrer: “I was thinking at the beginning of the first games, he played a really good game, was playing very aggressive. [It was] a surprise to me. Maybe the key was in my serve. I played very consistent. I didn’t make mistakes. I played very regular and very focused all the match
Rafael Nadal [1] has opened double-digit of wins # against Andy Murray [4], beating him in 2 hours 58 minutes 6-4, 2-6, 6-1 in the second, 20-minute delayed semifinal (Murray received injections to the sore right arm). It was a high quality tennis, especially in the 1st set, highlighted by a sequence of two very long games after a change of ends in the middle of the 2nd set which lasted 29 minutes in total (!) – Murray won both games to lead 4:1: the first one after 19 minutes 3 seconds (eight deuces, saving five break points), the second one after 10 minutes 18 seconds (four deuces, Nadal had three game points). Murray broke Nadal’s 32-set winning streak on clay… Stats of the match

# List of players beaten by Nadal at least 10 times (in paranthesis the exact H2H):

(16-9) Novak Djokovic
(15-8) Roger Federer
(11-4) David Ferrer
(11-0) Fernando Verdasco
(10-4) Andy Murray
(10-3) Thomas Berdych