Murray no match for fiery Gonzalez

Fernando Gonzalez blasted his way into the semi-finals of the French Open with a comprehensive win over No3 seed Andy Murray on Tuesday. The Chilean used his clay-court attacking skills honed over ten years on the circuit to power his way to a 6-3 3-6 6-0 6-4 win in two hours 15 minutes. The match-up was always going to be an intriguing one. Murray may be the newly minted world No3 and poster boy of British tennis but his record on clay reflected his lack of savvy on this, the slowest of surfaces. Murray had only played 37 of his 260 career matches on red brick, winning just over half of them, while Gonzalez had disputed no fewer than 212 matches on clay with a winning percentage over 70 percent – clear proof both of greater experience and of a genuine understanding of what it takes to win on dirt. Gonzalez also came into the tie having not lost a set at Roland Garros this year, spending barely more than six hours on court in dispatching his four opponents. If Murray was to make the semi-finals of a Grand Slam for the second time in his career, he was going to have to be at the top of his game. For the first half an hour, the Scotsman held his own, serving as wide as he could and camping well behind the baseline in an attempt to negate the Chilean’s all-out attacking brand of tennis. At 3-4 on Murray’s serve however, Gonzalez took almost every backhand as an inside-out forehand – a high-risk strategy but one which worked as he carved out a break point. He then changed his tack, luring Murray into a sliced backhand rally before passing him as he came into the net in two minds. Murray saved three set points as the Chilean had a brief attack of nerves but the No12 seed soon pocketed the opener 6-3. The second set followed the same pattern as the first, but this time it was 28-year-old Gonzalez seed who blinked first, handing Murray three break points in the sixth game and, after saving them with some big serves, fluffing two forehands to surrender the crucial break. One set all therefore – had Murray weathered the storm? Would Gonzalez be forced to play more cagily? Not a bit of it. The third set saw Murray blown off court 6-0 as Gonzalez hit a raft of forehand winners – 24 of them from the baseline alone throughout the match – and then deciding to dust off his slice, drop and cross-court play as he took the set on a wave of confidence. Murray had no answer to this combination of power and variation, his tennis looking terribly one-dimensional in comparison. The Chilean broke in the fourth to lead 5-3 but there was to be one last throw of the dice for Murray, with Gonzalez again having an attack of nerves. Murray hauled himself back into contention at 4-5, but a fifth set would have been more than he deserved. The Chilean promptly broke to love, fittingly on the back of yet more pin-point inside-out forehands, and will face Robin Soderling in a semi-final that promises to be a match full of fireworks between two massive hitters. “I've got to give a lot of credit to him,” said Murray straight after the match. “I’d played against him before and he hits the ball hard, but today he was hitting it huge. If that happens, sometimes you've got to say ‘Too good’. It's quite easy sitting on the side to look and think ‘you could’ve have done this, you could have done that’ but the guy is hitting ball so hard – no-one's hits the ball that big.” “At the start of the third set I had a few chances to hold serve and didn't take them, and then at the end of the match I played a poor, poor game and when I broke back, which is not like me,” rued the Scotsman. “I got myself back into the match there and played four bad points. It was a good week, a good couple of weeks though.” It was indeed a good week or so for Murray, and now the green grass of home at Wimbledon awaits, and more importantly for him, the subsequent hard court season where he first shot to real prominence last year. He can take heart from the fact that he has increased his cushion over fourth placed Novak Djokovic in the rankings and taken further steps to becoming a better clay court player. He still has some way to go however if he is to challenge seriously for the Roland Garros title in the future.