WHAT gives, Roger? Rafael Nadal made quick work of 19-year-old Russian Andrey Rublev in a 6-1 6-2 6-2 carnage in the US Open quarterfinals.
Coming in as the No. 1 seed, Nadal has now made his sixth US Open semi-final.
The surging Spanish left-hander was waiting for Roger Federer to join him for Saturday’s semi-finals in a potentially historic meeting. The epic rivals have never squared off at Flushing Meadows.
But the Swiss maestro couldn’t get it done.
Federer lost a four-set dogfight against old friend Juan Martin del Potro nearly eight years after the Argentine ended the Swiss Maestro’s run of five straight Open titles.
Del Potro came right back to break early in the third and surge to a 4-1 lead before serving a double fault on break point in the seventh game to hand Federer the break back.
Both players held their nerve to procede to a tiebreak. Del Potro fought back from 4-2 to square it at 4-4 and again from 6-4 to lock it up at 6-6. Federer had another set point on his serve at 7-6 but couldn’t convert and coughed up the next three to drop the set and fall beind two sets to one.
Both players made short work of their early service games in the fourth set, before Federer faltered again in the fifth game to give up a break and put his back firmly against the wall.
Del Potro was ice cool as he held his remaining service games to take the fourth set 6-4.
Federer’s performance drew some major criticism from the tennis media. Nadal was in a jovial mood after easy work against a player who idolised him as a kid and was bombarded with questions about his long-time rival.
“It’s strange we never played here,’’ Nadal said of Federer in his post-match on-court interview. “We’ve played in all the important events in the world. We missed it (here). It would be much more special if that can happen in the final (so) we’ll try to come back next year and make that happen.’’
Nadal smiled when asked what he’ll do in the evening. “I’m going to be having dinner, probably,’’ Nadal said, laughing. “Of course it is match I want to see. Two great players. It will be very difficult.’’
He provided more laughs in his press conference when asked what he admired most about Federer the man. “I don’t want to look like I gonna be his boyfriend, no?” Nadal joked. “We don’t want to talk these kind of things before important match.”
Nadal will be well-rested for his encounter with Del Potro. His last two matches — including his fourth-round, straight-setter over Alexandr Dolgopolov — were cakewalks. Nadal needed one hour, 36 minutes to dispatch Rublev, who showed he’s not quite ready for the grand stage. He got to this point with upsets over David Goffin and Grigor Dmitrov but he couldn’t hold his serve against Nadal.
