Milos Raonic defeated Rafael Nadal in the quarter-finals of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif. on Friday night.
The match went the distance, with Raonic, a native of Thornhill, Ont., prevailing 4-6, 7-6, 7-5 to earn his first career victory over Nadal in six tries.
"I'm about as happy as I can be," said Raonic, who has improved his showing at this desert venue with successive appearances. "I'm delighted and very fortunate.
"But there is a day of work tomorrow and I have to prepare for that. I need to keep up the momentum."
Raonic fired 18 aces and hit 48 winners to 25 winners for Nadal, who had 22 unforced errors.
They dueled in the second-set tiebreaker, when Nadal held three match points 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.
That's 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, who lost to a Canadian player for the first time in nine career matches.
Nadal's defeat prevented Djokovic, Federer, the Spaniard and Murray — the world's top four-ranked players — from reaching the semifinals at the same tournament since the 2012 Australian Open.
Raonic, the sixth seed, moves on to face second-seeded Roger Federer in the semifinals.
Earlier Friday, Federer beat Tomas Berdych 6-4, 6-0, keeping alive his bid of winning an unprecedented fifth title in the desert.
Federer improved to 15-1 this year and earned his first straight-set win over Berdych since 2011 in Paris and just his second 6-0 set ever in 19 career matches against the Czech.
"I was really able to utilize the court much more, play more angles, play with variation, spin and slice. I did that very well," Federer said. "Because I was serving well and moving well, so maybe there is not going to be that many chances for him on the return."
Top-ranked Novak Djokovic will meet fourth-seeded Andy Murray in the other men's semifinal on Saturday.
Pospisil advances to doubles final
In doubles, Vancouver's Vasek Pospisil and American partner Jack Sock, the Wimbledon champions, reached the final by beating Poland's Marcin Matkowski and Serb Nenad Zimonjic— former partner of Toronto's Daniel Nestor— 6-3, 3-6, 10-6 (match tiebreak).
The pair will play for the title against Italians Fabio Fognini and Simone Bolelli.
Serena Williams bows out
Serena Williams has withdrawn from her semifinal at the BNP Paribas Open because of a right knee injury.
The world's top-ranked player was set to play third-seeded Simona Halep in the second semifinal Friday night. She was expected to address the crowd on-court after the first semifinal between Jelena Jankovic and Sabine Lisicki.
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