Nadal strolls into Rome Masters semis

ROME: Rafael Nadal showed no signs of the fever that has been troubling him this week as he strolled into the Rome Masters semi-finals here with a 6-1, 6-3 demolition of Marin Cilic.

Earlier Andy Murray became the first British man to reach the Rome semis in the Open era after a bizarre 1-6, 6-1, 6-1 victory against Florian Mayer.

Having been totally off colour on Wednesday in a tortured three-set victory over Italian qualifier Paolo Lorenzi, Nadal proved he was back to his best against Cilic.

The big serving Croat hit twice the number of unforced errors as Nadal in the first set with the world number one clinically taking his only two break point opportunities and securing the set with a powerful, deep forehand that Cilic couldn't return.

The second set started off going with serve until Nadal broke to love in the seventh game, Cilic's wildly long forehand on the final point indicative of the loose game he played.

And in his next service game the world number 23 plonked a forehand into net to give up match point and then hit another wide to hand Nadal the match.

Nadal will play Roger Federer's conqueror Richard Gasquet in the semi-final after the 16th seed came back from a set down to beat 7th seed Tomas Berdych 4-6, 6-2, 6-4.