Djokovic battles past gutsy Murray to set up Nadal final

ROME, (Reuters) – Rafa Nadal and Novak Djokovic will  clash at the Rome Masters in another dream showpiece on clay  after winning their semi-finals yesterday in vastly different  circumstances with the French Open just over a week away.
  
World number one Nadal reached his sixth consecutive final  this year after brushing aside Frenchman Richard Gasquet 7-5 6-1  but second seed Djokovic was forced to scrap for his victory.  

The Serb won a late-night third-set tie-break to beat his  British opponent 6-1 3-6 7-6 in an exhilarating three-hour  encounter to stretch his unbeaten run this year to 36 matches.  

“It was a fantastic match and whoever saw it knows how close  it was,” said second seed Djokovic, who has won six straight  tournaments this year including a first victory on clay over  Spaniard Nadal at the Madrid Open last week.“He (Murray) played really well. I had to earn my points as  he wasn’t making a lot of errors. It took a lot out of both of  us and unfortunately someone had to lose.”  

On finishing the match after 2300 local time, the Serbian  said he would try to recover to be fully fit for today’s final  which is scheduled at 1600.  

“I made the mistake of  playing 40 games in the past four  months — that’s what went wrong in the second set,” he said.  “I’ve played more matches than any player, so it’s normal that  you get exhausted. I will do my best to recover for tomorrow.”  

Novak Djokovic
Andy Murray

Djokovic broke Murray’s serve in the second game and then  twice more as the Scot struggled to live with the Serb’s power  and precision in the first set.  

But Murray, who had won three of their previous four  confrontations, found the slower pace of the second set much  more to his liking, prospering in the long backhand rally  exchanges and breaking in the fifth game to square the match.  
   
               THRILLING SET  

In a thrilling deciding set, Djokovic broke Murray’s serve  in the fifth game but the gutsy Scot refused to give up on a  single point and broke back for 3-3 with a blistering backhand  followed by a forehand as the momentum swung back his way.
  
Four more breaks of serve followed at an increasingly noisy  Foro Italico as Murray broke the serve of an exhausted-looking  Djokovic for a third time in the set for 5-4 but, helped by two  double faults, the Serb summoned the energy to break back again  in a game lasting more than eight minutes. 
 
Djokovic was always ahead in the tiebreak, producing a drop  shot and then a lob to reach 6-2 before sealing the match with  another drop shot as he let out a loud victory scream to  underline how close he had come to losing his unbeaten run.  
“I probably should have won,” Murray, who celebrates his  24th birthday  today, told reporters. “I’m one of the best  closers on the circuit. I think it’s the first time I haven’t  finished a match on serve and I hope it’s the last.”  
Despite the loss, the Scot said he was confident of  competing for titles at Roland Garros and Wimbledon.