It had been billed as the Battle of the Biceps, but in the end Andy Murray was made to look like a weakling by Rafael Nadal, who dumped him out of Wimbledon with a straight-sets victory last night. The only thing lacking from this one-sided contest was the sand for Nadal to kick into Murray's face, such was the humiliation of their quarter-final encounter.

Britain had been enthralled by Murray's heroics in the fourth round as he tenaciously chased down Richard Gasquet, of France, over a marathon of five thrilling sets to ignite the dream of Wimbledon glory. But the British No1 looked a shadow of the young man everyone had nicknamed Braveheart, who had kissed his new-look muscular bicep at the end of his match with Gasquet and then predicted that he would stand toe to toe with Nadal to slug his way through this crucial match.

If only Murray had got that close. Nadal turned out to be the true muscle man as he put on an awesome display of power tennis that had Murray predicting that the Spaniard could defeat Roger Federer, the defending champion. Federer had been first on Centre Court, cruising through to the semi-finals by beating Mario Ancic, the Croat, in straight sets. He will meet Marat Safin, of Russia, in the semi-finals tomorrow.

Murray said: “Nadal has a great chance of beating Federer. If he plays that well, I think he's close to being favourite to win the tournament. He's got a very good chance of winning. He was close last year [when he lost to Federer in five sets] and he's playing better than he did last year.”

Expert View

On Monday we had a vivid revelation of how far Andy Murray has come. Yesterday we had an even more vivid revelation of how far he has to go

Simon Barnes

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Nadal muscles Murray out

Spaniard stages awesome display of power tennis to reach semi-finals and extinguish British hopes for yet another year

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They were generous words in defeat, but the sense of dejection in Murray and the Wimbledon crowd was palpable. Britain had pinned its hopes on a young man who had undergone a strict new training regime to hone his body for the tournament that demands more of him than any other and it all seemed to have been going so well. The Murray Express was roaring towards its destination of a Wimbledon final until it hit the buffers last night in the bulky form of the awesome Nadal.

Murray refused to be cowed by the convincing 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 scoreline, but even he must know that Nadal could represent a blockade that will prevent him from winning a Wimbledon title. At 22, the world No2 from Spain, is only a year older than the man from Dunblane in Scotland, yet he has won four French Open titles and reached the Wimbledon final twice.

Nadal had been to hospital before the match for a scan on a knee injury that had been troubling him. Unfortunately for Murray, the Spaniard was declared fully fit - and it showed. Nadal said: “It was a special match to win against a big player like Andy. I think this is the best I have played at Wimbledon, specially in the second set.”

That was the set in which Nadal allowed Murray to win only two points against his serve, so crushing was his dominance. As the match went on, the Centre Court crowd that had roared and cheered Murray on Monday night fell silent with each flexing of the Nadal biceps as he sent a series of rockets over the net, shots that Murray gave the accolade of the “heaviest in tennis”.

Nadal will have to wait until today to discover who he faces in the semi-finals after the match between the quarter-final outsiders, Rainer Schüttler, ranked No94 in the world, and Arnaud Clément, the world No145, was suspended for bad light, squared at one set each.

The only consolation for the Murray clan was that Jamie, Andy's brother, progressed to the semi-finals of the mixed doubles with his partner, Liezel Huber. But even a repeat of Jamie's 2007 mixed doubles victory is unlikely to ease the pain of Andy's drubbing at the muscular hands of Nadal.