Roger Federer had to fight hard to beat David Ferrer and reach the Hamburg Masters semi-finals on Friday, but Rafael Nadal had no such problems as he brushed past Fernando Gonzalez for his 80th successive victory on clay.
Federer looked to be at about the peak of his clay-court game early on against the Spanish 12th seed but a second-set slump meant he was grateful to just scrape home 6-3, 4-6, 6-3.
Nadal was a lot more convincing as he broke Chilean fifth seed Gonzalez early in each set on his way to a 6-4, 6-4 victory in one hour, 38 minutes.
If Federer is to win his first Masters Series title of the year he will almost certainly have to beat not just one man from Mallorca but two.
In the semi-finals he will be up against the 30-year-old Carlos Moya, who pulled off a thrilling 7-6, 4-6, 7-5 win over the fast rising Serb Novak Djokovic, seeded fourth and 11 years his junior.
Nadal's prize for another impeccable performance against Gonzalez will be a semi-final against former world number one Lleyton Hewitt, who outpunched Spain's Nicolas Almagro to win 6-3, 6-4.
"I've always admired Lleyton," Nadal said of the Australian. "He's one of my favourite players. I like his game and his mentality on court."
It looks to be heading towards a Federer-Nadal final, although clay-court expert Moya will provide another stern test of how the Swiss is feeling on the surface in the build up to the French Open, starting later this month.
EXCELLENT START
Federer looked pretty comfortable early on. A dazzling start saw him go a set and 4-2 up but his serve then deserted him and he started to play a string of wayward groundstrokes.
He pulled himself together at the start of the third but still needed a big slice of luck to scrape home.
Serving at 3-3 and 30-30, the Swiss saw a scooped forehand hit the top of the net and dribble over. It brought a relieved smile from Federer, while Ferrer threw his racket down in frustration.
Federer duly held and took a decisive 5-3 lead when he converted a fifth break point in Ferrer's next service game.
"I was lucky there on the net cord," Federer said at a news conference. "That was huge."
Moya's surprise victory owed something to the five-and-a-half hours Djokovic had spent on court on Thursday, when he had to win two matches.
The 19-year-old, who has three titles already this season, lost the tiebreak at the end of an untidy first set 7-4 but hit back strongly in the second.
Moya, who won at Roland Garros back in 1998, grabbed a break at the start of the third and calmly withstood everything the exhausted Djokovic could throw at him.
Moya missed one match point in losing his serve at 5-3 but, crucially, he held his next service game and then forced three match points, taking the third of them as Djokovic missed an attempted backhand pass.
"Games like this, when I compete against a great player 10 or 11 years younger than me, are my motivation now," said Moya. "And it will be a great honour to play Roger."
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