Nalbandian is in full form today again late season as he completely outplayed a red hot Murray to reach the semis of Paris masters. The first set was tight but Nalbandian won it in the tie-break and had a chance to completely steamroll Murray in the 2nd set. Credit to Murray as he fought back and made it a bit competitive but he lost the 2nd set 6-3 in the end.

Federer was scheduled to face Blake today with the winner facing the winner of Tsonga-Roddick match. But Federer has pulled a muscle in his back and is out of the tournament. Blake needs to reach the final to get to the Masters Cup. He may have to go through his friend to do that.

Andy Roddick’s journey to qualify for the year-ending championships took a hit today when he was bettered in two tie-breaks by Soderling (7-6, 7-6). Andy won two tie-breaks in his previous match against Robby Ginepri, but did not get lucky this time as Soderling used his serve to dominate his service games. Soderling had 4 break points on Roddick’s serve but didn’t break. Roddick had one and when 0 for one.

Roddick now has to rely on his result in Paris Masters to make it to Shanghai. But at least he is in a better position than Blake or Gilles Simon. Let’s see if these guys can catch up. I am personally hoping for Gilles Simon to make it so we can see another Simon Nadal match there, but we shall see.

I have been meaning to post about Andy Murray and his achievements of late. He has simply revolutionalized himself by beating Nadal, Federer, Djokovic (2 times) in a matter of a couple of months. Sure. He was awfully spanked by Federer at the U.S. Open, but that was partly due to his inexperience and lack of consistent serving. But he served a treat by serving bombs at Federer and edging him at Madrid Masters.

Murray is currently No. 4 in the world and is getting close to Novak by the minute. But if you take out the losses to Nadal and Federer, Murray has actually outperformed Novak in the second half of this year. With Djokovic going out to Karlovic last week, Murray had further chances to cement his position as the real No. 3 in the world. So here is the question for the rest of this year. Can Novak catch Federer at No. 2 or will he fail again like he did against Nadal and let Murray take over No. 3? The next Masters Series will reveal a lot about this question.

As expected, this was an amazing match. Both guys came to play, but Murray was a bit better in returning, and that made the difference. Murray had lots of chances to win it earlier but finally broke through in the 11th game of the third set to break serve and served it out easily to win the match. I can’t wait for a rematch with Nadal!

Update: Nadal could not come through against Gilles Simon and fell 3-6, 7-5, 7-6 to bow out of one of his favorite tournaments. Gilles Simon looked as if he was going to pass out after the 2nd set but he hung on and now faces a fresh Murray in the final. Not looking good for him.

Two intriguing matchups for today. Murray vs. Federer should be very interesting. I personally believe that Murray has a better chance of winning this as it’s a best of 3 sets match. I’ll take Murray in 3. But wouldn’t be surprised if ninja Federer showed up.

Nadal vs. Simon is a mismatch on the paper. Simon gets a lot of balls back, but that won’t work against Nadal and his punishing strokes. It’ll be probably 3 and 4 for Nadal.

What are you picks? Andy or Roger? Rafa or Gilles?

Madrid Masters continued yesterday, and Federer got out of a potentially tricky match with Stepanek unscathed by winning the 2nd set tie-break just when Radek was finding his feet. Federer vs. Tsonga is the match tennis fans wanted to see, and that is going to happen now.

Roddick had no trouble with Robredo as he utterly dominated the spaniard. Djokovic almost lost it to Hanescu though. Hanescu played the match of his life and had Novak on the ropes for about 2 sets before failing to clinch it in the 2nd set tie-break and having to retire in the 3rd set.

Next up is Gasquet vs. Nadal, Murray vs. Cilic, and Del Potro vs. Nalbandian.

Madrid masters officially started today with the No. 1 player in the world in action. Nadal was facing a potentially dangerous opponent in Gulbis and was kept on his heels for 3 sets, but he came through with a late break to wint 7-5, 3-6, 6-3.

Blake wasn’t that lucky however as he fell to Giles Simon after taking the first set. Blake was on fire in the first set but went away in the last two sets for yet another loss to Giles Simon this year. Blake has had a season to forget this year, and things don’t seem to be getting better any time soon as he now doesn’t control his destiny to Shanghai.

Federer and Djokovic will be in action tomorrow.

Safin and Nalbandian in finals? That’s a scene we haven’t seen for a while. Nalbandian had a tough one against Solderling but he came through. Safin on the other hand was beaten by his Russian peer Igor Kunitsyn. It’s a shame that he could not come through as what we need right now is for Safin to win a few titles and get his confidence back.

Next up is Madrid masters, and we have exciting matchups already. Gulbis vs. Nadal is going to take the cake though.

Jonas Bjorkman played his last single match of his career after he lost to Juan Monaco 6-2, 6-4. Bjorkman had a glorious career, culminated  by his semi-final appearance at Wimbledon a couple of years ago. He will certainly be missed.

The good news is that Joachim Johansson has finally come out of retirement. I always thought that he was too young to retire from the sport, and I am glad that he is back. He won his first match against the dangerous Nicholas Mahut 7-5, 7-6. Let’s not forget that this man has victories against Nadal and Roddick. So he can be a dark horse in most tournaments. Next up is Nalbandian, which should be an exciting match.

Juan Martin Del Potro’s got to be the hottest player on the planet these days, He won again today by beating Gasquet who was playing well himself. The final score was 6-3, 4-6, 7-5. But perhaps the surprise of the day was Berdych who finally won a big match to reach another final. Berdych has had a tough year and it looked as though his drought would continue when Roddick served for the match at 5-3, but Berdych broke and won the third set tie-breaker to stun Roddick and set up a match against Del Potro.

I would still take Juan Martin over Thomas tomorrow. Berdych is a very good player but I don’t think he can cause Del Potro much trouble if Juan plays like he has. It could go to three sets but Del Potro will win his 5th title in this past couple of months.