Rafa roars again as Serena eyes dream final
Melbourne : A resurgent Rafael Nadal beat Milos Raonic to reach his first Grand Slam semi in three years at the Australian Open on Wednesday, as Serena Williams eyed a final with her sister Venus.
Nadal hasn't contested a major semi-final since he won the last of his 14 Grand Slam titles at the 2014 French Open, but he never looked like losing to Raonic, the Canadian world number three.
Spain's Nadal yelled in delight as he completed a 6-4, 7-6 (9/7), 6-4 win which set up a semi-final with Grigor Dimitrov -- with old rival Roger Federer potentially waiting in the final.
"Even though I had a great career, I had a lot of tough moments," said Nadal, who struggled with injury last year and failed to reach any of the Grand Slam quarter-finals.
"That makes me enjoy this even more."
Nadal has a 7-1 head-to-head record with Dimitrov, the Bulgarian 15th seed dubbed 'Baby Fed' for his Federer-like playing style who earlier ousted Belgium's David Goffin 6-3, 6-2, 6-4.
Federer will play fellow Swiss Stan Wawrinka in Thursday's semi-final with the very real prospect of a ninth Grand Slam final against Nadal, and the first since the 2011 French Open.
The women's competition also has a retro feel after Serena Williams beat Britain's Johanna Konta 6-2, 6-3 to set up a semi-final with an emotional Mirjana Lucic-Baroni -- 19 years after they last met as fellow teenage prodigies.
Williams, 35, has come a long way since her last meeting with Lucic-Baroni in the second round at Wimbledon in 1998, when they were both 16 and without a trophy to their names.
While Williams is now eyeing an Open-era-record 23rd Grand Slam title and a return to world number one, the Croatian is into her first major semi since 1999 after her career was derailed by personal trauma.
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