Clay is Stani's favourite surface and he won their only meeting on the surface, so it will be another difficult match.

I think (hope) that Andy is fired up at the prospect of meeting Nadal in the next round and will try his hardest in this match (although why anybody would want to meet Rafa on clay is beyond me).

Although I was very critical of Andy in the Murray v Ancic thread last week, one thing that I actually had noticed he had improved a lot on this year was his break point statistics.
 
Last year, for a top 20 player, they were very poor, both for saving and converting.

This year so far, in the ATP statistics, he is 19th for Break Points Saved with 64% and 25th with break points converted with 41%.

For such a good returner, his break points converted figutes should probably be better still, but he has overall improved on key points this year.

Even in the JMDP match, his overall conversion figures were good at 5/7 ( 71% ) even although his saved figs were not so good at 2/6 ( 33% ), so sort of balanced out.

The seeds are dropping like flies in Rome:  Ferrer (3) & Nalby (7) are the latest to follow Gasquet (9), JWT (10), Moyá (11) & PHM (15) through the nearest uscita, beaten 6-4 2-6 1-6 & 4 & 5 by "Ugly Mug" Stepanek & Nicolás Almagro respectively!   Hope that's not a bad omen for later in the afternoon...

But is a break up in the second !

And Andy loses 6-2, 7-6(5). And worse still Nadal lost to Ferrero!

Nadal has blisters. Doesn't bode well for RG.

Is the Hamburg surface traditionally a bit quicker than Rome? If Andy can find some form there and get top 16 for RG I think he could make the last 16 there with a nice draw.

Stan Wawrinka had too much clay court craft for Andy Murray in Rome, defeating the british number one 6-2 7-6(5). Murray was second best throughout the opening set but he fought hard to avoid defeat, saving five match points before finally firing a forehand long in the tiebreak.

A terrible drop shot when break point down cost Andy the opening break of serve and despite one lengthy service game, Wawrinka never had to face a single break point during the first set. In contrast Murray was broken a second time, double faulting to concede his serve to love to lose the set 2-6. Not much going right for Murray who was completely dominated by his swiss opponent. Each time Andy went for power on his double-handed backhand, he seemed to lose control, typically firing the ball straight into the net. Just 3 winners from the scot compared to ten for Wawrinka.

Andy started the second set much better, a well executed drop shot getting him the break after a brutal backhand crosscourt for an outright winner had got him to break point. Despite considerable pressure Murray held on until a desperately poor spell saw him lose 15 out of 17 points. From a break ahead Andy was facing three match points. He saved them all, plus another, with much improved aggressive play.

Into the tiebreak, Wawrinka won the opening point with some inspired play, his lob seemingly landing right on the line. Andy's sliced backhand unforced error long looked costly but he soon got back on serve to lead 4-3. Then two poor errors, a backhand wide followed by a forehand long under no pressure left him serving at 4-5. A missed first serve gave Wawrinka the chance to dominate the point and his aggressive play was rewarded. Murray saved one but lost control of a forehand to lose the tiebreak 5-7.

A decent effort from Andy in the second set but for long spells he looked somewhat lost against a more natural clay court opponent. Far too many errors especially from the backhand wing, and his touch on the drop shot was missing for once. Murray's return of serve had little impact while his own serve could barely be described as a weapon on this display. In the opening set Andy was perhaps guilty of sitting too deep behind the baseline, and he clearly needs a lot of practice at forcing the points as the number of errors was alarming.

-- Edited by kundalini at 21:33, 2008-05-07