Twin peaks target in Tokyo

“I played great from start to finish,” Murray said of his performance on www.atpworldtour.com.

“It was always going to be a tough match, but I played smart and I was hitting the ball very deep from the back of the court, so it was a very good performance.”

“I think he [Nadal) has played some very good tennis the last couple of matches. He’s always tough. He won here last year, so he likes the conditions.”

Murray will also contest the doubles final after he and brother Jamie defeated Robin Haase and Viktor Troicki 6-3, 1-6, 10-6 in the semi-finals.

Andy Murray will attempt to become the first player to win both the singles and doubles titles at an ATP World Tour event this season

The Tokyo singles semi-final was Murray’s 11th win in a row and he has lost just once in 23 meetings, with his overall form also impressive having lost just twice since Wimbledon.

In fact, Nadal has inflicted two of his last three defeats on him, something he will need to remedy this morning if he is to back-up last week’s win in Thailand, but this performance against Ferrer suggested he was ready to do that.

Murray’s incessant hitting from the baseline, normally a hallmark of Ferrer’s game, forced the world No 5 to concede his serve twice in the first set, allowing the Scot to take it at a canter. Ferrer’s hopes of fighting back in the second suffered an instant blow as Murray cashed in three break points in the very first game.

That was all he needed and, after holding serve impressively and displaying none of the frailties that appeared on serve during his quarter-final win over David Nalbandian on Friday, he won inside 81 minutes.

Nadal stayed on course to successfully defend his title, when he booked his final spot against Murray with a win over Mardy Fish.

The world No 2 won nine of the last ten games against the previously in-form American to earn his 65th win of the season.

That tally takes him clear of nemesis Novak Djokovic, who has registered two of his 64 wins this season in grand slam finals against Nadal.

Today’s match will be the Majorcan’s tenth Tour final of the year and if he wins, it will be his first hard-court triumph since winning this event a year ago.

In the doubles semi-final, the Murray brothers took the first set 6-3 but were broken twice to lose the second set in quick time.

The Murrays regrouped to claim a 10-6 victory in the Match Tie-break in 62 minutes.

The pair will now bid for their second ATP World Tour team title after victory at the Valencia Open 500 last year when they beat Mahesh Bhupathi and Max-Mirnyi in the final. Jamie Murray is chasing his second title in three weeks after victory two weeks ago at the Moselle Open in Metz, when he was playing with Brazilian Andre Sa.

In the final the Murrays will face fourth seeds Frantisek Cermak and Filip Polasek.

They edged out Brazilians Marcelo Melo and Bruno Soares 3-6, 7-5, 10-7 in 82 minutes.

The Czech-Slovak tandem, who still have an outside chance of qualifying for the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals at 15th in the 2011 ATP Doubles Team Rankings, are through to their second straight ATP World Tour final.

Last week they finished runners-up at the Malaysian Open in Kuala Lumpur.