Eight-time winner Rafael Nadal recovered from a set down to beat Britain’s Andy Murray to reach the Monte Carlo Masters final.
Murray broke twice to take the opening set 6-2, but wilted under the Spaniard’s power and accuracy to lose the next two 6-4 6-2.
The win was Nadal’s seventh over Murray in eight meetings on clay and puts him into his 100th ATP World Tour final.
He faces Jo-Wilfried Tsonga or fellow Frenchman Gael Monfils in the final.
Murray beat Nadal for the first time on clay in last year’s Madrid Masters final, but his hopes of being only the third player to earn back-to-back victories over the world number five on the surface were dashed in a brutal two-and-a-half-hour encounter.
It was a match high on quality but also rancour, with both players being irked by some controversial umpiring decisions, reports the BBC.
