Andy Murray handed top seed Rafael Nadal only his sixth loss of the season Saturday as the Scot stormed into a second consecutive final at the Toronto Masters 6-3, 6-4, dpa reported.
Victory gives Murray the chance to repeat as champion in Canada. The last to do it was Andre Agassi in 1994-1995.
The win in one-and-three-quarter hours boosted Murray's confidence after losing the Australian Open final in January to Roger Federer and going down after holding a match point against Sam Querrey in Los Angeles a fortnight ago in that title match.
Murray will test himself Sunday when he plays the winner from Federer and world number two Novak Djokovic, only man remaining who has not dropped a set all week.
"I understand that if I go on the court against the top players, I need to play great tennis to beat them - that's what I did today," said the world number four.
"You never expect to beat the best players in the world, but if I play my best tennis like I did today, I have a very good chance against all of them. But the margins are so small in tennis.
"This is the surface I feel most comfortable on. I move better on the hardcourts than on the other surfaces. And there are certain things that the surface allows me to do against him that maybe on the others I can't."
Murray's win was his 29th of the season against 11 losses, while Nadal was defeated a day after winning his 50th match of the season.
The semi-final featured the world number four players in the field, with Nadal leading the way. It last happened in Canada in 1987.
Murray now stands 4-8 against Nadal after beating the Spaniard in an Australian Open quarter-final and losing to him in the Wimbledon semis. The Scot won the last of his six 2009 titles last November in Valencia.
Murray fired nine aces to Nadal's two and broke three times.
"Overall I'm feeling good," said Nadal, who said he will concentrate on his serve during practise before next week's Cincinnati event. "I've won 34 of my last 36 matches and have played well all season.
"It's not a bad start for the hardcourt season. I had chances for the final and I'm not so far off my game. I just need to produce more chances to win."
World number four Murray won 14 of the last 19 points of the opening set and took the second-set lead in the third game with a break.
He lost that edge for 3-3 - the game included a controversial apparent double-fault that Nadal said was not called - but got the margin back with another break of the Spaniard for 5-4 before serving out the victory.