Rafa Nadal completed a super-human turnaround from clay to grass to line up against Novak Djokovic on Saturday and contest the title at the Artois Championships. The Spanish top seed denied Andy Roddick a record-setting fifth trophy at Queen's club 7-5, 6-4 in a masterful semi-final display.

The surprise showing came a mere six days after the world number two lifted a fourth consecutive trophy at Roland Garros.

Rafa, with 27 trophies mainly on clay, stands one win away from his first career honour on grass with just eight days to go before the start of Wimbledon.

Rafa leads Djokovic 8-3, beating him in a Roland Garros semi-final last week as well as going through a year ago at Wimbledon when the Serb quit injured in a semi.

"I feel much better this year," said Djokovic. "I'm more mature and playing with a lot of confidence."

Rafa on his side, has quickly found his feet on grass after another runaway clay season.

"It was an important match for me," said Rafa who admitted that he had never expected to get this far this week. "Being in a Queen's final is always unbelievable, especially without many days to adapt to grass.

"This week is amazing for me, I'm just very happy how I'm playing on grass. I'm especially very happy to play the final here."

The 22-year-old has only dropped serve once this week and leads the ATP circuit with a 48-7 record and four titles this season. Defending champion Roddick came to the court after playing only one set the last two days after Mardy Fish retired with an ankle injury on Thursday and Andy Murray withdrew with a thumb injury on Friday.

"To be honest, I got about what I wanted out of it," Roddick said of his week after missing the French Open with a shoulder injury. "I was coming in short on practise, I hadn't really played much at all.

"I hadn't served full out till the day before I played. I hit the ball better than I expected to. It's tough coming in cold turkey and trying to play on a grass court, which is slimy and slippery. It kind of takes some sharpness.

"It was about as much as I could have expected" But the American was quick to praise the winner. "He played well today, there's no question. He's just so match sharp right now. He's almost in cruise control from just playing so many matches. "Credit to him, he just beat me today."