Andy Murray is relishing the challenge of trying to overcome clay king Rafael Nadal in the semi-finals of the French Open.
Scot looking forward to pitting wits against world number one
Andy Murray is relishing the "challenge" of trying to overcome Rafael Nadal and reach his first French Open final.
The world number four faces the Spaniard in the semi-finals on Friday, with the world number one bidding to equal Bjorn Borg's record of six titles at Roland Garros.
Nadal has only ever lost one match in the tournament, while Murray has this year reached the last four for the first time, despite hurting his right ankle and almost crashing out in the fourth round to Viktor Troicki.
Nadal has also had an eventful path to the semi-finals, recovering from two sets to one down in his first-round match against John Isner.
Murray has never made a secret of how much he admires his next opponent and likes pitting his wits against the left-hander, having won four of their 14 meetings.
"It's one of the best challenges in tennis," said the 24-year-old. "His record here is incredible.
Difficult match
"I'm looking forward to it but I understand it's going to be an incredibly difficult match for me.
"That's why I need to make sure I do all the right things, watch some videos of matches that I played against him, and recover, because you're going to need all of your reserves to get through a match with Rafa at the French."
Murray's dramas continued on Wednesday with an emergency trip to the dentist to repair a tooth he cracked eating a baguette, but he is confident he has the character to take on Nadal.
"I needed to fight back against Troicki in tough circumstances but all my matches except that one were straight sets," he said.
"It has been a tough few days for me mentally. I'm glad I've got a day off where I can rest and recover. It does make a big difference - 48 hours are enough to recover and calm myself down, take everything in and go from there.
"I'm happy that I'm in the semis. It's a good result. But it's not worth going through what I've gone through the last four or five days to just be happy getting to the semis."
Nadal has looked as vulnerable as he ever has at Roland Garros this year and he has described in detail his mental and physical problems.
But Murray is well aware he looked back to his old self in his quarter-final win over Swede Robin Soderling, the only man to have beaten him at the event.
Excellent tennis
"He's still playing pretty good so I know Rafa will play excellent tennis against me," he said.
"We've had some really good matches and he's always played well. Even in practice he plays well against me, so I don't expect him to play badly."
Although Nadal has won all three of their previous matches on clay, Murray took him to three sets during their most recent meeting in Monte Carlo in April and went as close as anyone to beating Novak Djokovic this year in the Rome semi-finals.
"It was definitely one of the best clay-court matches I've played, and also my match with Rafa a couple weeks before in Monte Carlo was a very high level," Murray added.
"I have to maintain that for a long period. I'll have to play as well as I did on those days to give myself a chance."
Nadal, who turns 25 on Friday, played down Murray's ankle problem by saying: "I did the same thing in the past and you feel pain but, in my opinion, it is not limiting you when you are playing, so I don't think that's going to affect him and his confidence. He's playing well.
"Playing against Andy is always a big challenge because you know how good he is. He has all the shots. He can defend very well, he can attack very well, he runs fantastic.
"The only way that you can beat him is playing at a very, very high level. Without that it would be impossible. That's what I'm going to try to do."
