Rafael Nadal, World No. 2 will play the Roger Federer in the semis of the Australian Open.
Both men have given it their best to get to this stage. Nadal had a blister that was bleeding in the quarterfinal match.
Federer planning ahead of his Nadal match told the Telegraph, "When Stefan came to Dubai [in December] and we spoke about the game, we clearly spoke about playing Rafa," He added, "He thought he had some good ideas, so I'm looking forward to what he has to say."
Rafael Nadal's blister was bothering him so much that he was serving below par in terms of strength. He dropped the first set playing Grigor Dimitrov, the Bulgarian star who plays a lot like Federer.
The decade long rivalry between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer will see them play head to head in their 33rd match against each other. 32 of these have been semis or finals. And it's going to be a repeat performance at Melbourne Park.
Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal have slogged it out at Grand Slam tournaments; 16 of them were Masters matches and five were ATP World Tour Finals that signals the end of the tennis season.
This will be the first GrandSlam match after Rafael Nadal's four set win at the Australian Open 2012 semis.
In 2008, the two faced each other at Wimbledon, in what was then called the 'greatest match of all time'. The grueling 6-4,6-4, 6-7, 6-7, 9-7 victory for Rafael Nadal proved to be a turning point for the two.
Later, Rafael Nadal became the first to take Wimbledon and the Roland Garros capturing the 'Channel Slam' after Bjorn Borg.
After the win in Paris, Nadal was quoted by tennis.si.com as saying, "I am very happy for me," adding, "but sorry for him, because he deserved this title, too."
Federer agreed with this opponent saying, "Probably my hardest loss, by far. I mean, it's not much harder than this right now."
The two will face off one more time on Friday to see who the best man is to go into the finals.
