Rafael Nadal and Stanislas Wawrinka both claimed Australian Open semi-final victories on Friday to set up what will be a first against eighth seed Grand Slam final.
Nadal crushed 17-time Grand Slam champ Roger Federer 7-6 (7-4), 6-3, 6-3 in what has become a regular result between the two generational greats- Nadal has now won 23 of their 33 encounters and has lost just twice from the pair’s 11 Grand Slam showdowns.
Federer was the obvious fan favourite at Rod Laver Arena and it took a set and six games before Nadal secured the first break of the evening.
Backed by chants of “Let’s Go Roger” when he tied the third set 2-2, the vocal love of the predominantly Aussie fans wasn’t enough for the Swiss veteran to get the job done; beaten convincingly over the final two sets.
“It’s really, really emotional for me to be back on this court, Rod Laver Arena, and to be able to play another final,” said Nadal, who missed last year’s Open after suffering a knee injury that kept on ice for seven months.
Nadal has been playing through what can only be described as a pretty gruesome and painful looking blister on his dominant left hand, but played down the extent of the injury saying, “Too much talk about the blister. The blister is OK. The problem … is the position of the blister, it’s difficult.”
Federer has won just one major since his victory at the 2010 Australian Open and is no longer the top ranked Swiss player, losing that honour to final-bound compatriot Stanislas Wawrinka.
Friday’s other semi-final saw the tournament’s seventh and eighth seeded stars face off with Wawrinka getting the better of Tomas Berdych.
Wawrinka came out on top of the tiebreaker filled match to win 6-3, 6-7, 7-6, 7-6 and continue his recent run against the 28-year-old Czech.
‘‘Last year I played four times against Tomas. He beat me the first in Davis Cup, but then I won three times,’’ Wawrinka said.
‘‘He was always the one who was a little bit choking (in a) few moments, a little bit down, and that’s what happened today again.’’
This semi truly was a tight one with Wawrinka amazingly winning just one more point overall (143-142), having his serve broken just once over the course of the semi and was forced to fight back from multiple points down in the final set.
Wawrinka is yet to win against Nadal.
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