TENNIS/Australian Open:If Andy Murray can bring himself to watch tomorrow's Australian Open semi-final between his first-round conqueror Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Rafael Nadal, he will wonder at what might have been. Tsonga's path to the semi-finals, the latest step of which was a 7-5, 6-0, 7-6 win over Mikhail Youzhny yesterday, was the one pre-ordained for the British number one

Whether Murray would have made the most of a sympathetic draw the way Tsonga has, or beaten Youzhny with such brutal force, is a matter for conjecture. But while Murray licks his wounds, Tsonga is looking forward to an encounter with the world number two and the possibility of playing a grand slam final in five days' time.

"I want to cry, I want to smile, I want everything. There's a lot of emotion," said Tsonga, who came into the tournament ranked 38th in the world but will leave much closer to the top 20. "I knew it would be a tough match but I'm playing better than last year and I'm very confident in my game."

The 22-year-old Frenchman has seized his opportunities over the past 10 days with much the same zeal with which he hits his whipping forehands.

There were plenty of those against Youzhny and he should enjoy pitting it against Nadal's fabled left-handed version of the same shot.

"I have played him once before at the US Open," Tsonga said of his next opponent.

"He is a different player but he has two arms and two legs like me. I will try to stay relaxed on court."

Nadal's 7-5, 6-3, 6-1 win over Finland's Jarkko Nieminen probably posed more questions than it answered about his form and fitness.

He seldom wins matches easily, even when he is at his best, so it is not always easy to gauge his form but he had to save set-points in the first set against the Finn and was fortunate not to be pushed harder.

His knees are bandaged to prevent the discomfort caused by pounding the baseline and there is some suggestion that the foot problem he suffered at the end of last year might also be hindering him on hard-courts - though this is the first hard-court grand slam semi-final he has reached.

"I am playing and serving well at the important moments," he said.

Nadal has spent just nine hours and 40 minutes on court so far - a fact he thinks will work in his favour at the business end of the tournament.

"I normally spend much longer on court in reaching the semi-finals," Nadal said.

"I think the longest I have been on court (in a single match in this tournament) is about two and a half hours."

By way of comparison, Roger Federer, a 12-time grand slam winner and three-time Australian Open champion, spent almost five hours on court in just one match, his five-set victory over Serbia's Janko Tipsarevic in the third round.

Nadal's only scare came when he saved two set-points in the 10th game of the first set on his own serve, and it proved to be the turning point of the match.

Nadal's win keeps him on course to become the first Spaniard to win the Australian Open.