Andy Murray v Rafael Nadal – live! | Barry Glendenning

• Hit auto-refresh (or whack F5) for all the latest action • Ping your emails to barry.glendenning@guardian.co.uk • Check out the French Open website • Follow Barry Glendenning on Twitter First set: *Murray 1-2 Nadal: Nadal goes 15-30 up, but Murray plays himself out of trouble with a booming serve and follow-up that keep Nadal penned into the corner, allowing Murray to whip a forehand into the vacant side of the court. Nadal gets the first break point of the match, but another whipped forehand from Murray makes it deuce. A baseline rally ends when Murray plays a backhand from deep into the bottom of the net: advantage Nadal. He breaks Murray with a straightforward passing shot down the line when the Scot was stranded at the net. “In the build up, Andrew Castle referred to Andy Murray as being ‘master of his domain’,” writes Mike Hale. “I wouldn’t have taken Castle for a Seinfeld fan but good to know Andy is resisting going solo during his extended stay in Paris.” First set: Murray 1-1 Nadal*: Murray passes Nadal at the net, but his whipped backhand lands millimetres outside the tram-line: 15-0. On point two, Nadal rushes towards the net and leaps to dispatch an attempted Murray lob with a backhand smash: 30-0. Murray pulls a point back, but Nadal makes it 40-15 when his opponent sends a forehand long in the first base-line rally of the game. A double-fault from Nadal makes it 40-30 and Murray comes out second-best from another baseline rally to hand the game to the birthday-boy from Mallorca. Going by the way the players’ shirts are rippling, I think it’s safe to say there’s a very stiff wind blowing in Paris, which isn’t going to help either player. First set: *Murray 1-0 Nadal: Murray serves and wins the opening three points after stepping into his own backhand and forcing errors out of Nadal in three short and sweet points. He lets the Spaniard in by sending a forehand into the net, but closes out the game by forcing Nadal into another mistake off his second serve. John Silk makes an interesting point: “If you were no good at directing the ball at the right height for you opponent to do smashes, doesn’t that make you a decent player?” he asks. Possibly, but it could be argued that a good player should be able to direct the ball at the right height for his opponent to “do” smashes, if he wants to. The umpire introduces the players: The man in the high chair looks a bit like Gary Dourdan, who used to play Warwick Brown in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. It can’t be him, though, because Warwick was shot dead in an alleyway a couple of seasons ago, if memory serves me correctly. His agent must have tried to squeeze a few dollars too many out of Jerry Bruckheimer. The players are on court: Well, beside court. Rafa Nadal is sitting in his chair sucking on a bag of energy gel, a vision in turquoise shirt and headband, white shorts and socks. Murray is similarly attired (oh, the embarrassment!), but with a white baseball cap rather than a headband. They begin their bash-up, a pre-match ritual I used to hate when I played tennis, because I just wasn’t very good at sending the ball up to the requisite height for my opponent to practice his smashes. An email from Gary Naylor: “Kevin Mitchell wasn’t quite so keen on Andy Murray four years ago ,” he writes. To be fair to Kev, I think the Andy Murray of four years ago was a far more petulant, narky beast than the one of today. Meanwhile on Eurosport Annabel Croft and Mats Wilander are interviewing Francesca Schiavone. I’m not sure how much more of this excitement I can take. Not long now: If you think my preamble lacks a certain amount of pazazz, you should see what they’re showing on BBC Interactive at the moment. Nothing, that’s what! Unless you count a visually underwhelming still rectangular graphic with an add for imminent tennis. Good afternoon everybody . It’s been an interesting couple of weeks for fourth seed Andy Murray, whose Parisienne [anyone know the French for travails ?] have been well-documented in this wry scene-setter by the always excellent Kevin Mitchell . In a series of hapless misadventures you’d more readily associate with René Artois in an episode of ‘Allo ‘Allo! than a top tennis player trying to win a grand slam, Murray has injured his ankle, cut his own hair with hilarious consequences, got lost on the Metro and – cue stereotypically French accordion music – knocked out one of his own teeth while biting into a baguette. For all that misfortune, the young Scot remains one of only four men in with a shout of winning this year’s tournament and has also done his public image no end of good by greeting each and every misfortune visited upon him with stoicism and good humour. We wish him well. Murray’s opponent today is top seed Rafael Nadal, who celebrates his 25th birthday today. In 44 outings on the clay of Roland Garros, the Spaniard has only ever lost once, playing with two knacked knees against Robin Soderling in 2009. “Playing against Andy is always a big challenge because you know how good he is,” said Nadal. “He has all the shots. He can defend very well, he can attack very well, he runs fantastic. The only way that you can beat him is playing at a very, very high level. Without that it would be impossible. That’s what I’m going to try to do.” Whoever prevails in this encounter will face either Roger Federer or Novak Djokovic, who will take to the Court Philippe Chatrier shortly after the conclusion of this match. French Open Tennis Andy Murray Rafael Nadal Barry Glendenning guardian.co.uk

Posted by on June 3, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.