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.

It seems we won’t be seeing the top guys in action anytime soon. No offense to Roddick, Ferrer, and other guys, but Federer and Nadal are very careful about their schedules. For Federer much more is on the line as he will need to win the two masters series to have any chance of overtaking Nadal this year. For Nadal, he has a huge lead over Federer, and a decent showing in both Masters Series will lock the year-end No. 1 position for him. But it’s great that these guys are saving themselves for bigger tournaments so we can enjoy seeing these guys in action for a longer period of time.

Tsonga did what he should have done at the Australian Open final, beat Djokovic. This time Tsonga did not let an early lead slip by and won it 7-6, 6-4. Sure the Thailand Open is a great win for Tsonga but I know he’ll be kicking himself for not using the same strategy against Djokovic (though it needs to be said that Novak had more confidence back then).

Roddick survived another tie-break loss this week to win the Beijing open. After losing a tie-break to Ferrero and Phau, I personally thought Roddick would reverse the streak, but he was solid enough to win two sets after losing yet another tie-break set, this time to Sela. Let’s see if Roddick can back up this result with a win over a top player

The Beijing and Bangkok Open continued today, and 3 of the favorites made it to the finals of these opens. Roddick again survived a bad second set to beat Phau and reach the final. Tsonga was in impressive form and demolished Monfils 6-0, 6-3. Djokovic was also the victure against Thomas Berdych 7-5, 6-1.

While these tournaments are not huge per se, it’s still good to see a few top players competing in them. But I personally can’t wait for the next masters series which we will see the “fab 4″ in action.