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Marathon Effort Sees Raonic Beat Nadal

Marathon Effort Sees Raonic Beat Nadal

Canadian Milos Raonic recorded his first win over Rafael Nadal after a three-hour marathon effort in their quarter-final match at Indian Wells.

Raonic outlasted Nadal 4-6 7-6 7-5 to overcome the Spaniard, firing 18 aces and hitting 48 winners to Nadal’s 25 winners and 22 unforced errors in the match at the BNP Paribas Open.

"It's really great what I was able to do today and I'm very happy with it, but I don't let myself get caught up because this isn't where it ends," Raonic said.

"There is a lot more that I want to achieve this week."

Nadal held three match points in the second-set tiebreaker but he committed errors on two of them and Raonic smashed a winner on the other.

Raonic had plenty of chances in the tiebreaker, too, finally converting on his fifth set point when Nadal netted a shot.

Neither gave an inch in the third, staying on serve until the 11th game.

The key moment came when Raonic earned the only break of the set, hitting a shot on the baseline that Nadal chased down but sent a backhand long. Raonic dropped just one point on his serve in the final game, winning on another backhand error by Nadal.

Despite losing, Nadal said he had gained some much-needed confidence and improved his attitude from where it was eight months ago.

"It's true that I didn't compete at that level of intensity mentally in tennis for a long time," Nadal said.

"I was able to be there very focused, playing with positive energy for three hours, so that's great news for me, because that's the way I competed during all of my career."

Raonic will now play Roger Federer after the Swiss star defeated Tomas Berdych 6-4 6-0 to improve his win-loss record to 15-1 for the year, his only loss coming against Andreas Seppi in the third round of the Australian Open.

Top-ranked Novak Djokovic takes on fourth-seeded Andy Murray in the other men's semi-final on Saturday.