Shanghai, October 17, 2009

Rafa Nadal will go up against one of his best friends and fellow Spaniard, Feliciano Lopez in the Shanghai Masters Series semifinals tonight at 8:00pm (local time).

"I'm happy to be in the semi-finals," said Rafa after his match against Ivan Ljubicic last night, (The Croat retired with a thigh injury after winning the first set 6-3 and losing the second 3-6). "I'm also very happy for Feliciano”.

"He's been having a difficult year and this is a big result for him. He will be coming to the court with confidence. I hope to play a good match and have my chances to win."

It will be the sixth career meeting between Rafa and ‘Feli’ Lopez. The Australian Open champ leads the head-to-head series 4-1 and is 1-0 on hard courts but 0-1 on indoor carpet. Their second, third, and fourth encounters came on clay.

Lopez's lone victory over his countryman came way back in 2003, when Rafa was 17 years old and he needed a third-set tiebreaker to get past the youngster in the Basel first round.

Their last encounter was in the quarterfinals of the Madrid Master Series Tournament at this same time last year.

Vamos Rafa! 

Video courtesy of Marca/meriko100