Andy Murray facing epic Madrid final against Rafa Nadal

But beating Nadal on his favourite surface is a huge task for anyone, let alone a player whose best performances have all come on the faster surfaces used during the rest of the season.

And the Scot, seeded second in Madrid, knows that he has a huge task on his hands.

"Against Rafa it is going to be extremely difficult, especially playing here in Spain," said Murray.

"I think he's played very well this week, too. Hopefully I can put in a good performance and make it tough for him and see what happens."

Murray produced a superb performance against Kei Nishikori to make Sunday's final, but will need to step up his game against a player he has beaten just five times in 20 encounters - and who crushed him in the French Open semi-finals last year.

But the world number three claims that his new approach could give him the chance he needs.

"This year and in the off-season I put in a lot of hard work on my game and made a few changes and tried to get back to playing the way that I was playing when I was my most successful," said Murray.

"I think today [Saturday] I was pretty aggressive. I tried to dictate a lot of the points, especially when he was serving, and it worked well."

Murray is a former champion in Madrid, though that victory came when the tournament was a late-season hard court event.

Since the switch to clay, Nadal has won the tournament three times in five years.

And after a poor start to his clay court season Nadal has really hit his stride.

"For the past couple of days I have been playing better and better every day," said Nadal.

"That's always very good news. I am in the final. I am happy for that. I am enjoying a lot the fact that I am playing in front of an unbelievable crowd. For me, that's the best crowd in the world without any doubt. So that gives me a lot of really positive energy.

"Today [Saturday] I played again at a very good level. I did yesterday; today I played at a very, very high level. Let's see tomorrow if I am able to continue with that positive feeling.

"This week has been fantastic for me. This is a very important result, and that's confidence, that's positive energy. That's calm, too. Let's try to continue tomorrow and try to continue with that good feeling next week.

"I worked a lot to have that feeling, and today I had that feeling that I've been trying to find for a while."