Murray clipped at semi's by Nadal, again

Another grand slam, and another postscript on Murray's hopes of winning a big one. Only a British player could have a year where he reached three grand slam semi-finals and one finals, and it gets labelled a disappointment.

More annoying than his four set loss to Rafael Nadal late on Saturday night was the constant stream of bogus analysis coming out of the sky sports commentary box. Murray's performances seem to engender over-analysis, not from print journalists, led by the Guardian's Kevin Mitchell, who keeps things blessedly simple. But broadcasters seem to go mad, diving into detailed discussion about the Scot's gameplan. They also seemed to think that Murray's encounter with John Isner, 24 hours earlier, had sapped his stamina as if his fitness has been in question for the past three years.

And then the lengthy expositions about his body language. Give it a rest, that is getting old.

Boil the defeat down to two things, Murray made too many errors and did not serve well enough. Meanwhile excellent service by Nadal nullified his usually excellent service returning. Perhaps Nadal realises that the trick with serving to Murray is to rely on placement rather than speed.

His revival in the third set was more down to a combination of luck and a Nadal blip than a shakeup in gameplan as those behind the microphones suggested. Perhaps the Spaniard threw him a pity set if there is such a thing.

Hopefully Murray will take the three loses to Nadal in three consecutive grand slam finals as a wakeup call. His tennis still needs work. He needs to learn how to shutdown his service games against the best. The problem with Murray when he plays Nadal is he never gets deep enough into a set before falling behind. Nadal is a genius and there is no easy way to beat him, but if you get to 6-6 you can fluke the odd tie-break.

In his seven grand slam matches against Nadal (record 2-5), only four sets have gone to tiebreaks, and Murray has won half of them, both in the matches that he won. In the months leading up to the Australian Open, only four and a bit months away, he needs to work on his second serve and beef up his first serve percentage.

Ah, screw it, I'm just going to watch the Murray-Gasquet match from 2008 and forget the last three years actually happened.

Murray deals with Lacko, Berdych out

The Brit had all his synapses firing, and playing at about 80% in challenging conditions, he defeated Slovak Lukas Lacko in straight sets. While he was toiling in the New York heat, Tomas Berdych, the man who defeated Murray at Roland Garros, and the next highest seed in his quarter, crashed out to Frenchman Michael Llodra.

It makes Murray's run to the semi finals easier, and he should have no problems with his second round opponent. Dustin Brown, a Jamaican player, is ranked 123. The winner will face either Stanislas Wawrinka or the Argentinian Juan Ignacio Chela, and then probably Sam Querrey or Nicolas Almagro in the fourth round.

American John Isner or Mikhael Youzhny could meet the Brit in the Quarter Finals, but the eye-catcher in that part of the draw, is a potential third round clash between Julien Benneteau and Michael Llodra, both Frenchmen, and current doubles partners. Both pulled off shocks to get to the second round, Llodra defeating seventh seed Berdych, Benneteau 29th seed Radek Stephanek.

Murray meanwhile played precise tennis, moving Lacko around the court with line to line groundstrokes, putting away anything in the mid-court, and generally mixing up his game. Every time the Slovak thought he had Murray measured, the Scot would show him a different shot, or mix it up with different spin. It was good enough to put away an opponent of Lacko's calibre, but it will be completely different if Murray faces Nadal or Federer. Yesterday's match was no real indicator of where his game is.

Men like Llodra, Querrey and Isner rely on their first serves, and Murray typically does better against those sort of opponents because he is such a good returner of the serve.

But against the top three in the world if you don't serve well you lose. If you don't put away mid court balls, you lose. If you don't hit the lines consistently, you lose. Toronto was a sighter for Murray, and will give him belief that he can beat both Nadal and Federer in the same tournament, but then that was a best of three set encounter. Five-setters are very different animals.

I worry about Murray in those situations, because his record in tie-breaks is not good. When he faced Andy Roddick for a place in the 2009 Wimbledon Final, what cost Murray was losing the last two sets in tie-breakers. Last year in Flushing Meadows he was dumped out in the fourth round by Marian Cilic. Hopefully the same will not happen this year.

For those who say the reason Murray has not won a Grand Slam because of the pressure heaped on him by the British media (English really) is utter nonsense. Can anyone point towards an instant where it was obvious he lost because of pressure. We've watched Tim Henman so long, we equate losing with too much pressure. Murray was outclassed in the two Grand Slam finals he has played against Federer. This year at Wimbledon, Nadal was in inspired form, while Berdych blew him away at Roland Garros. You talk about pressure, this is pressure. It is just an excuse built in by the English media to make some sense of national losses.

Murray is now a match for anyone on the tour, but first he needs to get to Friday, semi-final day.