INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — With Roger Federer clearly struggling with a back injury, Rafael Nadal rolled to a 6-4, 6-2 victory in the quarterfinals of the BNP Paribas Open here on Thursday night. The comprehensive win was Nadal's 19th over Federer in 29 matches, and it came in Nadal's first hardcourt tournament in more than 11 months. He missed more than six months with knee pain and returned to action on his preferred clay courts in February, winning two titles in smaller tournaments in Brazil and Mexico.
"Well, it's amazing, no?" Nadal said in an on-court interview after the match. "For me, just to be back in the competition is fantastic. I had matches in the Latin American clay-court season; now I'm here for first time in seven months on a hardcourt tournament, so very happy to be in semifinal."
Despite questions about how Nadal's body would respond to hardcourts, on Thursday night, in front of a sold-out crowd, it was Federer who was in visible pain. He struggled to get any look at breaking Nadal's serve, winning just 16 points when Nadal was serving. Nadal, meanwhile, won 37 points against Federer's serve. Federer was forced to dig out of deficits in all six of the games he won, as Nadal exploited Federer's weaker backhand side, as he has in so many of his wins.
Federer had tweaked his back in a routine third-round victory over Ivan Dodig of Croatia, and though he managed to tough out a three-set fourth-round win over his countryman Stanislas Wawrinka on Wednesday afternoon, Nadal's strength, speed and shot-making abilities left Federer uncharacteristically exposed.
"I mean, I could play," Federer said of his health in a postmatch news conference. "I'm happy to be out there and able to compete, you know? But it's obviously a small issue. That doesn't work against guys like Rafa, obviously."
Federer added of Nadal: "He's not going to come back half-broken. I expected him to tear through the clay. I expected him to be tough here, which he shows to be."
For his part, Nadal was aware of how his opponent was compromised. "I don't know if Roger Federer feels 100 percent tonight — sorry for him," Nadal said. "But for me it was an important night, an important evening, and just every match means a lot to me."
This quarterfinal match was their earliest meeting in a non-round-robin tournament since 2004, when Nadal beat Federer in their first match, in Key Biscayne, Fla. But no matter when it occurs, the prospect of a Federer-Nadal match has an air of timelessness to it.
"Always it's very, very special against Roger," Nadal said. "The best player of the history, no? I feel like it's a classic match every time when I go on court and play against Roger. We always had a fantastic relationship outside the court. That's probably because we understand that, someday, it's only a game.
"And we play at our best in every match — today was me, last year was him," Nadal said, referring to Federer's last victory over him, in the semifinal of this tournament one year earlier. "These matches always have a special feeling."
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