TENNIS:GOOD, BUT not good enough. Of all the words expended, of all the excuses proffered or rejected in a bizarre fortnight, those were the only ones that mattered for Andy Murray after Rafael Nadal had beaten him 6-4, 7-5, 6-4 in three hours and 17 minutes to reach his sixth French Open final.

While the Spaniard left Court Philippe Chatrier yesterday contemplating drawing alongside Bjorn Borg’s record of six titles here tomorrow, Murray was preparing to leave Paris, his rolled ankle throbbing still, his baguette-chipped tooth healed, but undecided about playing Queen’s in preparation for Wimbledon.

If he does pull out he will have two weeks to ease the pain on his torn tendons, and the hurt from losing will fade soon enough too.

All in all, given the context of his year, Murray had a successful tournament. He has never played better on clay and, while he lost to Nadal for the 11th time in 15 matches, he was, as he observed afterwards, playing “one of the best players ever, for sure the best clay-court player ever”.

Nadal appreciated he had been in a fight. “Andy’s a fantastic player,” he said. “He deserves to win a grand slam very soon. Always for me it’s an honour to play against him.”

From the start to the end, the wind made for some ugly shots, but it also called on both players to tailor their game and their strategy to the demands of the elements.

To that end, Murray did well here and there. He hit flat from the base line when the circumstances allowed, cut down lobs to an acceptable level and resisted the temptation to rush the net when forcing Nadal into positions where his only retaliation could be passing shots on either wing.

Nevertheless, in conditions more suited to sailing, Murray blew more chances than Nadal – too many to be totally satisfied with his first appearance in a French Open semi-final. The world number four knows that opportunities at the tough end of grand slams do not allow for the profligacy of the earlier rounds.

He converted only three of 18 break points; Nadal’s conversion rate was six from 13. Those numbers make tough reading, however kind the winner was to the loser.

Murray has work to do before he moves up and, on the evidence of this tense, ragged contest, Wimbledon may be the place where he makes a move.

Mats Wilander, who is mentioned as a possible future coach for the Scot, said of Murray’s effort: “Maybe he could have hit his heavy strokes more, gambled at the net more. He didn’t force Nadal into enough tough corners, to force errors under pressure.”

Tennis is a game of moments, and the ones that Murray did not take Nadal invariably punished.

The Scot left the blocks flying, trying drop shots and going bravely to the net – but Nadal grabbed his first chance to break in the third game when he passed Murray at the net.

Murray fell 1-5 behind in the set with further indiscretions, although he was not playing that badly. It was just that the margin for error was so slim, and the wind so cruel, that good tennis was not enough. He needed to lift his game, and could not quite manage it as the set slipped by.

He toughed it out, though, and was still competitive in the second set. There were some marvellous exchanges, before the gusting breeze really kicked in, and Nadal looked under serious pressure for the first time. He had to save two break points to stay in touch midway through the set and could not convert three of them himself as Murray hung on to trail 2-3.

Nadal dropped serve to let Murray draw level at 3-3, but the Scot had to save two break points in the next game.

The third got away from Murray a little and he started ranting for the first time. By the time Nadal was serving for the match, the resistance had drained from Murray and the Spaniard served out to love.

“Right now I’m very disappointed,” Murray said. “But five, six weeks ago, if someone said, semis of the French, playing good tennis again, I would have taken that.

“It’s been my best French Open, so I’ve improved on this surface. Until today, I didn’t feel like I had played that well at this tournament. So that’s a good thing.