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Nadal marches on as Federer crashes out

TENNIS: MONTE CARLO MASTERS: ROGER FEDERER was blown away 6-4 6-4 by Juergen Melzer in the Monte Carlo Masters quarter-finals…

Sat Apr 16 2011 - 01:00

TENNIS: MONTE CARLO MASTERS:ROGER FEDERER was blown away 6-4 6-4 by Juergen Melzer in the Monte Carlo Masters quarter-finals, but Rafa Nadal stormed through as the gap between the two great rivals widened further yesterday.

While holder Nadal powered past Croat Ivan Ljubicic 6-1 6-3 to set up a semi-final with Andy Murray, Federer continued his sticky start to the season as Melzer deserved to seal his last four spot against David Ferrer.

Windy conditions caused problems on centre court during Federer’s match. Dust from the clay was flying up into the players’ faces but Federer can have few excuses having netted several simple forehands and a smash against the seventh-seeded Austrian, who recovered from a slight back injury suffered in the first game.

Melzer stormed back and never let 16-times Grand Slam champion Federer settle, taking two of his break point opportunities with gusto while limiting the Swiss’s ability to fight back in the first clay event of the European season.

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“He did well and played aggressive. He didn’t give me many chances,” said Federer, who has never taken the Monte Carlo title and last won a tournament at Doha in early January.

The French Open starts on May 22 and although Federer was impressive in his first two matches here, Nadal looks the clear favourite to retain his Roland Garros title even if in-form Novak Djokovic is waiting in the wings with a minor knee injury.

Top seed Nadal broke Ljubicic in the first game of the first set only to immediately lose the advantage by double-faulting but he broke again straight away when the Croatian netted a simple volley.

The rest was a procession for Nadal, who won every clay court tournament he entered last year and is bidding here to become the first man to claim the same event seven times in a row.

Murray, who had not won a match in almost three months before this week, continued his revival with a rampant 6-2 6-1 triumph over Portuguese qualifier Frederico Gil. He will be up against Nadal today in what is already a daunting task. Spaniard Ferrer earlier motored into the last four to a 6-3 6-3 win over Serbia’s Viktor Troicki.

Today's Semi-finals

(not before noon, Irish-time)

7 J Melzer (Aut) v 4 D Ferrer (Spa)

(not before 2pm, Irish-time)

3 A Murray (Brit) v 1 R Nadal (Spa)