Tennis

Nadal nears top gear ahead of Murray meeting

(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-07-01 10:24

LONDON - World number one Rafa Nadal is finally getting in the grasscourt groove after limbering up for a Wimbledon semi-final against home-hope Andy Murray with the taming of a familiar Swedish foe on Wednesday.

Spain's Rafael Nadal celebrates defeating Sweden's Robin Soderling at the 2010 Wimbledon tennis championships in London, June 30, 2010.  [Photo/Agencies]

After two surprising five-set tests against opponents ranked 151 and 41, Nadal began to shake off any clay court season cobwebs with victory over France's Paul-Henri Mathieu and now a 3-6 6-3 7-6 6-1 win over Robin Soderling.

Seven-times grand slam winner Nadal, together with the Court One crowd, began slowly on Wednesday slipping 5-0 down on the way to losing the first set before later shifting through the gears to leave the tall Swede in his wake.

"It was a hard start for me, because playing against a big server like Robin is very difficult to come back in the set," an upbeat Nadal, who beat Soderling to win his fifth French Open crown earlier this month, told reporters.

"I think he started playing very well, very long, with no mistakes, lot of winners, serving great. But after the first game of the second set, everything changed."

That watershed moment arrived at just the right time for the Spaniard. Having served poorly in the first set, Nadal was angered at the beginning of the second by a HawkEye call that put Soderling at break point -- a shot that the second seed thought was clearly out.

Nadal put a lid on his anger to seal the game and eventually the set.

"For the umpire sometimes it is not easy to make the right decision but for me today it was too an important point to make this drastic decision because it was 30-30," Nadal said.

"But I saved that point and after that everything changed. I started to play much better. He started to do a few mistakes, because in the beginning he didn't make one."

MURRAY MEET

Nadal showed no sign of the knee problems that prevented him from defending his Wimbledon title last year and the man from Mallorca said he is feeling fine.

"I am fine. After the second and the third round... the match of fourth round and quarter-finals, I didn't have any problem," he said, while knocking on wood.

Next up is British fourth seed Murray, who was busy on Centre Court dispatching Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in four sets while Nadal was trading heavy blows with Soderling.

"I'm very happy how I'm playing, how I arrive to the semi-finals. I know I'm going to have a difficult match against Andy but I am ready to try my best. It's going to be difficult, but I am playing well," he said.

For Soderling, whose grasscourt highlights are semi-final finishes at 2004 and 2006 in Nottingham, England, the Swede was celebrating a first Wimbledon quarter-final appearance but the party did not last long.

After setting the pace with a blistering first set, his bid to become the first Swedish Wimbledon finalist since Stefan Edberg in 1990 slipped away as rapidly as it began.

"In the second and third sets, I had my chances. I didn't really take them, so I think that was the biggest difference," an edgy Soderling told reporters.

"I think the difference was that he returned a little bit better than me. I was a little bit frustrated today because I didn't put many returns in."