Maestro Federer Masters Murray

Vintage Federer this evening (morning for you guys). Sublime backhands and forehands that left Murray clutching at straws.

Easily won the first 2 sets and seem to handle a mini-revival by Murray by setting himself to serve for the match in the 3rd.

Then the complacency set in and Murray broke back to take it to the tie-break. Federer again composed himself to race within 2 match points only to fluff his lines and allow Murray to win a set that he seemed destined to lose.

But Federer stuck it in and seized the initiative once more with a new found aggression missing in recent years to win the 4th.

He faces Nadal in Friday's semi-final, the Spaniard seeing off a determined Dmitrov (sp) who's been described as a 'Baby Federer.'

Wawrinka faces Berdych in the other semi-final, but you sense the champion will come from the semi-final between the 2 men who have 30 Slams under their belt.

Nadal will obviously start as hot favourite, having won 2/3 of his previous encounters with the Swis

Alas! Federer played some of his best tennis in 2 years. Unfortunately it wasn't enough against a player playing even better tennis.

Some points Nadal won, could not have been replicated by any other present player except say Djokovic at his best.

Those Federer back-hands, forehands, slices etc, had winners written all over it. Yet Nadal managed to get to them and return with a winner of his own.

Perhaps if Federer didn't collapse at the start of the 1st set tie-break, matching Nadal stride for stride until then, he might have been able to win the tie-break. The match complexion would have changed and put the onus on Nadal instead.

Once Nadal had that ace card, it was inevitable that his superior power, aggression and fitness would break Federer's serve. Expectedly it came in Set 2, and from then Nadal was on cruise control.

Federer's only hope left was Nadal's hand blisters taking it's toll. It didn't, and although he finally managed to break Nadal in Set 3, it was only a retur