RAFAEL NADAl showed he was getting back to his best as he crushed Andy Murray at the World Tour Finals on Wednesday with an impressive 6-4, 6-1 victory.

    The resurgent Nadal is now through to the semifinals of the season-ending tournament, disputed on a hard court between the year’s top eight players.

    A distracted Murray, who bizarrely clipped his fringe with a pair of scissors during one changeover early on, capitulated, but only after Nadal had softened him up with the kind of ferocious hitting that earned him 14 Grand Slam titles.

    Ripping forehands to all corners of the court and moving smoothly, the 29-year-old dominated throughout to qualify for the semifinals with a match to spare and leave Murray facing a Friday decider against Stanislas Wawrinka.

    Nadal’s progress could have been held up had compatriot David Ferrer beaten Wawrinka in the evening session, but having led 5-2 in the first set and having a set point, Ferrer succumbed, losing 7-5, 6-2 to the Swiss world number four.

    “For me to be able to play at that level against such a great player is good news,” Nadal told reporters.

    “Happy for that. I just want to try to keep working the same way to keep confirming that I am in the completely right direction. Today I felt free. I was enjoying on court.”

    For British world number two Murray, his thoughts may already be drifting towards next week’s Davis Cup final against Belgium on a claycourt in Ghent, although victory over Wawrinka on Friday will earn him a place in the semifinals.

    “I think he was hitting the ball extremely well today from the back of the court,” Murray told reporters.

    “From the middle till the end of the second set he played extremely well. But I didn’t really help myself. I served poorly at the end of the first set and all through the second.

    “Obviously I lost comfortably to Rafa today and I could play him in a couple days’ time and it could be a different story.”

    Murray won only 10 percent of points on his second serve in the second set, and a nine-point losing streak virtually sealed his fate and left him waiting for a first win over Nadal in London, having lost three times to him at Wimbledon and once before at the O2 Arena in 2010.

    His vision had looked clear enough at the start of the match, breaking serve in the opening game, only to drop his own serve immediately as Nadal worked the angles.(SD-Agencies)