Tennis: Nadal and Djokovic to battle in French Open semifinals

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The marquee matchup of this year's French Open is here and believe me when I say it'll be worth the wait.

Three-time defending champion Rafael Nadal will battle, and I mean battle, Novak Djokovic for a place in Sunday's final and for the number two ranking. Their last meeting was at the Hamburg Masters where a game Nole took a set off of the Spaniard but succumbed in the end 7-5, 2-6, 6-2.

Rafa knows the Serb's game is also suited to clay and said about the third seed,

He won at Rome; semifinal in Hamburg; semifinal in Monaco, and he lost to me or to Federer. He also reached the semifinal here in Paris. That's the second time in a row, so he's a very good player on clay, quite clearly.

While this may be true, Nole knows he's got a huge challenge ahead as he competes with arguably the best clay-court baller of all time, but he's not ruling out his chances saying,

In this period of the year when he's so dominant in last couple of years on this surface, he's never lost a match on the center court in the French Open, you know, he's ‑‑ all to his favor. But it's a big challenge for me, I think, as the third player of the world and Grand Slam winner this year. He has, you know, things have quite changed since the last year playing on clay. I think I have more quality in my game and more variety, so hopefully I can use it against him.

The Serb won't make an impression on this match if he stays at the baseline. He'll need to use variety and come in when the opportunity hits. But Rafa can hit incredible passing shots on the run and his defense is tops so Nole's approaches will need to be accurate and aggressive. But to do this time and time again against the Spaniard is exhausting physically and, more importantly, mentally.

You'd be a fool, a fool I say, to pick against the "Muscles from Mallorca". He seems more determined than ever to win for the fourth straight time and make a statement about his place in the game. But Nole will come in with his motivations to claim the no. 2 ranking a challenge for the top.

But it's Rafa and it's clay and that combination is deadly. So I'll take Rafa in three tough sets to make his fourth consecutive Roland Garros final!

Source: Down the Line!

Originally posted by Rich Rodriguez