Tennis: Ferocious Nadal Shows the Grass Weapons to Worry Hewitt

At the start of these championships Rafael Nadal gave the distinct impression that he was about as comfortable on grass as Bambi was on ice. The grass-court purists shook their heads with pity and predicted he would have trouble with his feet, his grip and his serve and his struggle to overcome the 237th-ranked American qualifier Robert Kendrick in five sets in the second round did little to rebutt their argument; it seemed that he had learned little from his previous two Wimbledons.

But now he is in the quarter-finals and just one match away from a possible meeting with arguably the only player in these championships who can match him for the ferocity of his will. Nadal's straight- sets win over Georgia's eccentric Irakle Labadze yesterday, 6-3, 7-6, 6-3 and Lleyton Hewitt's win in four over David Ferrer, the 23rd seed from Spain, a little earlier in the afternoon, 6-4, 6-4, 4-6, 7-5, brought a Friday semi-final between these two outstanding players one step closer. This is only Nadal's fifth senior grass-court tournament. But he is learning fast, hitting the ball flatter with less top-spin, while his movement, fitness and determination are disguising his callowness.

"I'm probably expecting Rafael to make the semis," Hewitt said last night. "I've said right along, through Queen's and Wimbledon here, the guy's a class player. He's a great player on any surface. It was never going to take him long before he won some matches on grass and then started beating good players like Andre Agassi. It doesn't surprise me that he's still in the tournament."

Hewitt and Nadal have met five times, with Hewitt leading 4-1. Nadal had his only victory when they met on his favourite clay surface in the fourth round of the French Open last month; he won in four sets on his way to retaining his title.

Their only meeting on grass came at Queen's immediately before these championships; the score was one set all when Nadal retired with a sore shoulder. Before Nadal makes the last four he must get past Finland's Jarkko Nieminen tomorrow.

He said yesterday: "Here it's all different and difficult but I've achieved my goal because I'm not playing bad. But it was tough today because he was joking around." Labadze, in fact, threw his racket and talked to spectators, the umpire the line judges and even Nadal. But it was not enough to put off the French champion.

Hewitt, meanwhile, that quality scuffler and one of only two surviving Wimbledon champions - he won in 2002 - along with the champion Roger Federer, strutted into a 5-1 first-set lead over Ferrer. But the Spaniard clawed back one of the breaks before losing the set 6-4 and had break points against Federer in the second set which he lost by the same score.

Ferrer is essentially a clay-court player but he has a big forehand and chases everything down as Hewitt discovered when his form dipped in the third set before he won 7-5 in the fourth. Ferrer was annoyed when the umpire over-ruled the linesman in the eighth game of the second set and the players had a brief exchange, though Hewitt denied TV allegations that he had told his opponent to cut his hair.

Hewitt mused about being the only surviving player in the men's and women's draw from an English-speaking country. "It is unusual. There aren't too many people that speak English on the tour any more; there's only a handful of us in the locker room. It's surprising the Americans aren't here." The biggest worry for Hewitt is that he has lost his previous nine matches against Federer, who beat him here in 2004 and 2005. But now the sixth seed must feel a little less confident about even reaching the final.