Murray hopes its third time lucky against Nadal

There's a distinct sense of déjà vu about this year's Wimbledon semi-finals. In an identical set up to 2010, Murray will face Rafael Nadal, while in the other match Novak Djokovic must play the plucky underdog who defeated Roger Federer in the quarter-finals.

Yet the Scot's fate has little to do with coincidence. As Murray is quickly finding out, the problem with being ranked fourth in the world is that, thanks to the seeding system, making semi-finals almost invariably means coming up against the top ranked player in the world. And that means Rafa Nadal.

It happened earlier this year at the French Open. Progressing through the tournament with relative ease, the two men met to battle it out for a place in the final. Murray, enjoying his finest ever run on clay, put on a remarkable performance, yet Nadal won the match in straight sets, 6-4,7-5, 6-4. "Will his best ever be enough?" the Guardian asked.

It also happened last year in Wimbledon. In the quarter-finals Murray had dispatched of Jo-Wilfriend Tsonga, the man who defeated Federer yesterday, to raise the British hopes. Yet Nadal was there again to douse any optimism with another straight-sets victory.

In total, Murray and Nadal have faced each other six times in Grand Slam tournaments, and Nadal has won four, lost once and retired injured once.

Murray, naturally, is confident he can triumph in their seventh encounter. "I believe I can win against him," he said yesterday. "I just have to have a better gameplan. Sometimes it comes down to strategy, sometimes it comes down to more experience."

But then, of course, he said exactly the same thing this time last year: "I know it's going to be an incredibly difficult match to win," he told the media in 2010, "but it's one I believe I can win if I play well."

A brief look at recent history suggests Nadal's foot injury, picked up when defeating Juan Martín del Potro earlier this week, offers Murray's best chance of progressing. The Scot made this year's Australian Open final only after avoiding a match-up with the Spaniard, who was knocked out of the quarter-finals after playing with a crocked hamstring. The last time Murray beat Nadal in a Grand Slam, in 2010, the Spaniard was forced to retire.

Tomorrow a nation will be hoping that an increasingly familiar Nadal-Murray semi-final showdown will produce something really special: Britain's first Wimbledon finalist since Fred Perry. ·