Murray has the right attitude

Andy Murray
12 April 2012

Andy Murray has vowed to go into Saturday's clash with Rafael Nadal at the Monte Carlo Masters with belief.

The British number one produced an excellent display to beat Portuguese qualifier Frederico Gil 6-2 6-1 on Friday and advance to a semi-final against the six-time reigning champion. Nadal was similarly untroubled as he overcame Croatian veteran Ivan Ljubicic 6-1 6-3.

Murray, whose strong run to the last four has ended a losing run stretching back over two months to the Australian Open final, is optimistic and told Sky Sports 1: "He is incredibly difficult to beat on clay but you need to believe you can win. I plan on winning the match and you need to go in with that attitude. I've always enjoyed playing Rafa - it's going to be a great test."

Murray, ranked number four in the world, needed just 72 minutes to see off the world number 82 despite a first-serve percentage of 50% as he went through his full repertoire of drop-shots and powerful groundstrokes.

He added: "It was good, I played very well in tricky conditions. I hit the ball very well for the majority of the match."

Nadal powered through his first set 6-1, Ljubicic winning just two of 17 points on his first serve, and survived two break points while serving for the match to close out victory.

The Spaniard said: "On days like this, the most important thing is to win."

However, world number three Roger Federer will not be in the last four after a defeat to Jurgen Melzer, who will now meet David Ferrer after the Spaniard beat Viktor Troicki 6-3 6-3.

The Austrian looked like he was heading for an early exit when he had to leave the court for treatment after the opening game with a back problem. But when he returned there was little sign of it hampering his game as he put together a composed display which proved too much for second seed Federer and culminated in a 6-4 6-4 success.

Melzer said: "My back blocked but the trainer did a great job. I have no problem playing with a bad back if I can play like that."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in