Tomas Berdych’s defeat of Rafael Nadal was the shock of the quarter finals, and the best performance in a round full of great ones. The Czech, who said he would ignore his losing record to the Spaniard and treat the match just like it was their first ever one, won 6-2, 6-0, 7-6, a scoreline which to many was unthinkable.
And for understandable reasons- Nadal had beaten Berdych 17 times in a row, was playing good tennis, and was the heavy favorite. Berdych, though, with new coach in tow, had not dropped a set en route to the last eight, and had been playing some of the cleanest hitting tennis of his career, which for the game’s cleanest ball striker, is most impressive.
The Czech hit 46 winners and only 21 errors against Nadal. He was mentally tough, too. When Nadal tried to stage a comeback in the third set, Berdych stayed calm and closed him out in the tiebreak.
His semi-final opponent, Andy Murray, put in a patchier performance against Grigor Dimitrov. The Scot came back from 0-3 in the first set, dominated the early stages of the match, only to lose focus in the second set, before knuckling down in the third. The Scot then fell 2-5 behind in the fourth before fighting back, his consistency and smarts forcing his opponent to break down and fail to win another game.
On the other side of the draw, Stan Wawrinka and Novak Djokovic put in commanding performances as they headed into their third consecutive match in Melbourne.
Djokovic claimed his three set win over Milos Raonic, one of the form players of the early season, was his best one yet. Meanwhile, Wawrinka put an end to the run of his U.S Open conqueror, Kei Nishikori, in straight sets.
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