Tennis: Andy Murray's straight-sets demolition of Gael Monfils today was certainly impressive but it did not even make the Scot's list of top-five performances during his unforgettable season.
Murray overcame a slow start to power into the semi-finals of the Madrid Masters with a 6-2 6-2 victory over Monfils, and he will now face Swiss superstar Roger Federer tomorrow for a place in the final.
The world number four looked in formidable form in the Spanish capital, but while Murray was pleased with his display, he did not feel it was among his very best matches of 2008.
"It's probably not in the top five, maybe in the top 10. It was a good match and I hit the ball great, but I had a couple of bad service games," said Murray, who has now won 46 of his 60 tour matches this year and is chasing his fourth singles title.
"I don't know how well I've played over 50 matches. The ones against (Rafael) Nadal, (Novak) Djokovic, (Richard) Gasquet, they will definitely all be at the top.
"I played a great match against (Paul-Henri) Mathieu in Marseille, the first match here was good ... so it was in the top 10, but it was behind the matches I played in the grand slams and against Djokovic, more because of the occasion I think."
Prior to today's match, Murray described 22-year-old Monfils as one of the best athletes on the tour, and that proved the case as the Frenchman regularly raced all over the court to retrieve shots that looked lost.
Murray felt that Monfils' all-action style helped contribute to what was an entertaining encounter, and perhaps made him look in even better touch than he actually was.
"There were some great points against him, although while I did play very well, it's easy to look like you are playing well against him because you have some awesome points. He does so much running," said the British number one.
"When you play against someone like Gael, you know you'll have some fun.
"We've known each other since the juniors, and I know his game pretty well.
"I served very badly at the start. But once I got a few more serves in, I only lost one more game until I lost my focus right at the end.
"I started to relax and hit the ball pretty well. It was a really satisfying performance."
As against third-round opponent Marin Cilic yesterday, Murray needed to do it the hard way to win the first set against Monfils after being broken in the opening game of the match.
However, the fourth seed hit back immediately to level the scores up at 1-1 and then broke Monfils again in the sixth and eighth games en route to taking the first set 6-2.
Murray then raced into a 5-1 lead in the second set, but having just broken Monfils in fine style, the 21-year-old immediately surrendered his serve in the following game.
Although he still went on to clinch the match soon afterwards, Murray admits his focus wavered for a while in that penultimate game.
"Sometimes in matches like that you feel like the match is almost done, you've played a great game, done a lot of running, hit some great shots and the adrenaline goes from being really high to a little bit of a low and I lost my concentration a little bit," he said.
"Well, I missed three forehands by a couple of inches so it could easily have been a comfortable game, but as the adrenaline goes down a bit you can lose concentration. But apart from that game it was a great match."