ANDY MURRAY, his confidence again buoyant after exacting revenge over Roger Federer for his US Open final defeat last month, plays for the second Masters Series shield of his career in today’s final in Madrid.

Instead of the expected opposition of world No 1 Rafael Nadal, he faces the Frenchman Gilles Simon, ranked 16, who will not only be in uncharted territory in a Masters Series final but must recover from yesterday’s test of endurance, which lasted 3hr 22min.

Simon, who can boast three tour titles this year, has had to come through a final set tie-break in four of his five matches this week. While Murray, inset, was relaxing back at his hotel after the third victory of his career over Federer, which took less than two hours to complete, Simon was adding Nadal to a list of conquests that already included Russian Igor Andreev, Americans James Blake and Robbie Ginepri and the big serving Croatian Ivo Karlovic.

He has met Murray twice before, losing to the Scot on clay in Hamburg in May after beating him on a similar surface in Rome almost 12 months earlier. But the crucial factor is likely to be physical conditioning and the ball seems firmly in the world No 4’s court.

Murray’s form could not be better. His reached his third successive final in as many ATP tournaments with a superb 3-6 6-3 7-5 win over Federer.

Next year, with this event moving outdoors to clay and a new facility with retractable rooves, the conditions could not be more perfect for Nadal. But that is for the future. The man of the moment most certainly seems to be Murray and much of the reason is hugely improved serve. “I served great, and that was the key,” he said after beating Federer. “I didn’t give him too many chances and that was the reason I won.”

Federer, who only decided to play this event at a couple of days’ notice, concurred that the new force of Murray’s delivery had played a big part “From Andy’s side, I thought he served very well today,” said the world No 2, who now just has one chance remaining at the Paris Masters in Bercy next month to end his year-long wait for a Masters.