Nadal Has No Reply As Murray Comes of Age

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After Hurricane Hanna came the hurricane from Spain, as Andy Murray quickly discovered last night when he resumed his US Open semi-final against Rafael Nadal only to discover the player he had becalmed before the storm arrived the previous day had been little more than an impostor.

But if the world No1 was a man transformed overnight, he met his match in the 21-year-old Scotsman, who is now a man transformed forever - from a contender to a world-beater; from a callow kid to a fully-forged athlete on the cusp of his first grand slam title. Greatness beckons for Murray now and on this evidence he looks man enough to seize it.

"I love New York," the 21-year-old Scotsman from the small town of Dunblane has said numerous times about his incongruous affinity with riotous city. Another performance like this against Roger Federer in today's final and New York will love him back.

Two sets ahead overnight, Murray saw his advantage halved within 20 minutes and prospect of a fifth-set decider rear its head shortly thereafter as Nadal took an early break in the fourth. Roared on a crowd desperate for a replay of his

Wimbledon epic against Federer, the Spaniard looked momentarily irresistible but for once in his bludgeoning, relentless rise to the summit of world tennis he ran up against a man possessed of equal intent and talent.

Who knows what today's final will bring but, no matter what happens, this will go down as the defining afternoon in Murray's career; a coming of age party lacking only the celebrations that accompany victory in a grand slam final. That ultimate prize may come today. If not, it will come soon - let there be no doubt about that. Not any more.

The meagre band of naysayers who deemed it to be the Scots' greatest misfortune to be around in the era of Nadal - a tennis version of Phil Mickelson, doomed to the purgatory of life in Tiger's shadow - will have to revise their opinion now. On Saturday he simply outplayed the Spaniard over two and a half sets, teasing him with his change of pace and his bewildering array of angles.

Yesterday he out-battled Nadal, refusing to bend to his opponent's will.

Equally significant, he resisted the dangerous temptation of self-pity, as well he might have done after the scheduling antics wrought by tournament organisers more inclined to cater to the needs of the television broadcasters rather than the needs of the players.

In truth, Murray and Nadal should have concluded their business on Saturday, before the deluge arrived. Instead, they were sent back out on court in the late afternoon sun, again at the behest of the TV folks. It was, by any measure, a disgraceful state of affairs but while others fretted over the brazen commerciality of the US Tennis Association, Murray had more pressing business at hand.

With Nadal rampant after the re-start, Scot succumbed in the third as his opponent served out to take it 6-4. Subdued the day before, the world No1 looked more like himself - fist-pumping his winners, skipping between points and whipping vicious forehands down the lines.

Yet even in this ominous turn of events, there were hints that this was to be Murray's moment. He held two service games in that third set, both to love, and there was a calmness, both in his demeanor and in the way he plotted his way through the early rallies, suggesting that if his supporters were worried he was not.

Even when he was broken early in the fourth, he was unbowed and quickly re-established parity with a break of his own. Thereafter, the match settled into a rhythm set by Murray and patterned to fit his game.

Suddenly, as the world No6 began to run his opponent around the court with a stunning array of ground strokes, mixed with the occasional drop shot, Saturday no longer seemed like a distant memory. He was not to be denied, even by a warrior such a Nadal.

When it came the end was meek affair, with the Spaniard, a break-point down, trying a drop shot from mid-court. It was a feeble effort by any standard but one that was emblematic of a spirit that had finally been crushed.Murray flicked it straight back past an opponent that has long considered him a friend but whom can now rightly call him an equal.