Rafa in semifinale !

Rafa Nadal survived a quarterfinal scare before battling to a 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory over Germany's Philipp Kohlschreiber on Friday to keep his bid for a third Toronto Masters title on track.

The world No 1. is attempting to become the first player in history [since 1990] to win four consecutive ATP World Tour Masters 1000 crowns following his clean sweep of the clay titles in Monte-Carlo, Rome and Madrid earlier in the year.

Kohlschreiber is a 26-year-old who came to Toronto ranked 37th, not yet cracking the tour’s Top 20. He was 1-7 against Top 10 players this year and 0-6 against Rafa head-to-head. Don't be fooled by the later stats though, on three occasions the explosive German has stretched Rafa to a third set, including this year’s Austrailian Open.

Rafa was broken in his first service game and went on to lose the opening set but the world's top-ranked player used his punishing baseline game to bounce back.
All he needed was one break in the second and third set to push the match in his favor.

“Philipp played well at the beginning and I made a lot of mistakes, but I found confidence on my serve in the second set and finished the match much better,” Rafa said at a press conference."Every match is tough and he's a good player, he's difficult to beat," he concluded.

Rafa now faces Great Britain's Andy Murray in the semifinals on Saturday. Murray, the defending Rogers Cup champion, had no trouble defeating Argentina's David Nalbandian 6-2, 6-2 on Friday.

"Playing on a hard court, it's harder to beat him. If you're not playing your best (against Andy) it's impossible to beat him. If you are playing your best, it's still very difficult," said Rafa about Andy.

The pair have clashed 11 times during their careers with the Spaniard coming out on top eight times.

This season they have one win each, Rafa beating Murray at Wimbledon while the Scot advanced at the Australian Open following the Spaniard’s retirement through injury.

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VAMOS RAFA !!!