ANDY Murray scaled new heights against Richard Gasquet on Monday night, coming back from two sets and a break down against the Frenchman to win in five and reach the quarter-finals of a grand slam for the first time. He showed massive reserves of self-belief, of strength and of stamina to stage that recovery, and he also profited, for the first time, from the unequivocal backing of Wimbledon's Centre Court crowd.
The 21-year-old Scot will need those qualities, and in even greater quantity, if he is to pull off a more extraordinary feat and defeat Rafael Nadal today.
The world No 2 has reached the final here for the past two years, and his march towards a third confrontation with Roger Federer has gone on virtually unimpeded over the first four rounds. Murray needs to do something substantially different from the quartet of men who have preceded him if he is to halt the Spaniard in his tracks.
Perhaps the most important prerequisite when you prepare to face a player of Nadal's ferocity is to avoid taking to the court already beaten. So many opponents assess his formidable strengths before they meet him, and conclude, albeit unconsciously, they are not equipped to get the better of him.
Murray is 3-0 down in head-to-head meetings with the second seed, but two of those matches were best of three and thus of lesser relevance. The other was at the Australian Open at the start of 2007, when the match went to five sets before Nadal showed greater stamina to take the last set 6-1.
A lot has changed in the intervening 18 months, with the most important alterations in Murray being the weight gain thanks to a heavy programme of gym work and the extra strength and endurance which have resulted. He will gain confidence from the fact that he is now patently a tougher player than he was when he came so close in Melbourne.
"My match against Nadal at the Aussie Open for me was the best match that I played up until this point," Murray said following his victory over Gasquet. "I learnt that I could play with him at his level. For probably four-and-a-half sets I was up there with him and definitely had my chances.
"I like to think I'm playing a bit better. It's going to be a completely different match to a year and a half ago.
Obviously he's the favourite for the match. But I do think I can win."
The Mallorcan player is renowned for his energy reserves, but he is also slowly becoming known as someone whose body is beginning to protest about the extraordinary demands he puts on it.
In the last round against Nicolas Kiefer, Nadal had a scare when he heard something click in his knee. A quick on-court check showed nothing was amiss, but the problems are mounting up. Already, the stress on his legs mean he is unable to go on the long, stamina-building runs which some players favour.
Naturally, Murray will go into the match with his own positive agenda rather than merely hoping to benefit from a factor such as injury to his opponent. But there are another couple of extraneous elements which could work in his favour.
One is the crowd. "Once I got ahead they got behind me more than ever before," he acknowledged, referring to the Gasquet match. "You're obviously tired at the end of the match, but it almost takes your mind off your physical state when you've got so many people behind you.
"They clearly made a big difference at the end, for sure. It's really my job to make sure that I give them something to shout about (against Nadal]. Hopefully start the match well, give everyone belief that I can go on and do it."
The second is the weather. Heavy rain is forecast today, and the Murray-Nadal quarter-final is due on second, after Roger Federer and Mario Ancic play their quarter-final.
There is a possibility that the Scot and the Spaniard will not get on court at all until tomorrow, and if they do make it out there today, there may not be time for the match to come to an end.
Order of play
CENTRE COURT (1pm)
(1) Roger Federer (Switzerland) v Mario Ancic (Croatia)
(12) Andy Murray (Great Britain) v (2) Rafael Nadal (Spain)
COURT ONE (1pm)
Marat Safin (Russia) v (31) Feliciano Lopez (Spain)
Rainer Schuettler (Germany) v Arnaud Clement (France)
The full article contains 769 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
