Federer vs. Nadal Battle Highlights Thursday's Card

© Getty ImagesNadal holds an 18-10 edge over Federer, but lost their last meeting, which came one year ago in Indian Wells.

For the first time in tournament history (since 1976) seven of the top eight players in the Emirates ATP Rankings have reached the quarter-finals of the BNP Paribas Open. Five of the quarter-finalists have captured at least one Grand Slam title. In fact, the last 32 Grand Slam titles have been won by the five (since ‘05 Roland Garros).

• The bottom half of the quarter-finals on Thursday will be played as World No. 6 Tomas Berdych takes a 5-0 career record against unseeded Kevin Anderson in the day session. In the night session, No. 2 Roger Federer plays No. 5 Rafael Nadal, who holds an 18-10 career advantage although Federer leads 6-5 on hard courts.

• The first match of the evening session features No.2 Federer and Nadal in one of the greatest rivalries in the history of the sport. This is their 29th meeting in their epic rivalry, the first in a quarter-final and the earliest they’ve met since their first meeting in 2004 Miami (3rd Rd.). They last met here in the semi-finals last year with Federer winning 63 64. Nadal leads their overall head-to-head, 18-10, including 8-7 in best-of-three matches (all of their other meetings have taken place at Grand Slams or best-of-five ATP Masters 1000 finals). Federer leads 6-5 in their hard court head-to-head (Nadal leads 12-2 on clay, Federer leads 2-1 on grass). Federer the oldest player left in the draw at 31, is playing in his 58th career ATP Masters 1000 quarter-final (45-12 mark) and Nadal is appearing in his 53rd (43-9 mark). Federer is 4-6 in his last 10 matches against Top 10 opponents, while Nadal is 10-0 – his last Top 10 loss was last year here to Federer.

• In the second match of the day session, No. 6 seed Berdych looks for his sixth win in as many meetings against unseeded Anderson. Berdych has won three of the five meetings on hard courts. Berdych has hit 48 aces and converted 15 of 39 break point chances (39%), while Anderson has served 73 aces but only converted six of 24 break points (25%) in their previous encounters. The 27-year-old Berdych is appearing in his 23rd career ATP Masters 1000 QF, second time here – 2010 (l. to Nadal), while the 26-year-old Anderson is playing in his second ATP Masters 1000 QF, previously 2011 Miami (l. to Djokovic). Anderson is the first South African to reach the quarter-finals here since Wayne Ferreira in 1996 and the fifth unseeded player to reach the quarter-finals here since 2009.

• The last match of the evening session is a semi-finals doubles match between the top seeds and World No. 1 Bob and Mike Bryan against Santiago Gonzalez of Mexico and Scott Lipsky of the U.S. The Bryans are playing here for the 14th time with a career record of 26-13. They were finalists in 2003 and ’06. They come in with a record 85 career team titles, winning three this year in Sydney, the Australian Open and Memphis. The Aussie Open was their sixth and an all-time Grand Slam record 13th major doubles title to break the record they shared with Aussie greats Newcombe-Roche. The only ATP World Tour Masters 1000 titles they haven’t won is here and Shanghai. They have a career record of 21-16 in ATP Masters 1000 finals. Gonzalez and Lipsky have a career record of 28-20 and are playing together here for the first time. In their first tournament as pair they defeated the Bryans in the final at Barcelona in 2011. They have three career doubles titles together, two last year – Winston-Salem and Newport. The 30-year-old Gonzalez has five career titles and been a finalist twice. The 31-year-old
Lipsky has eight career titles and has been a finalist seven times.

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