If you were to look at head to head records between Rafael Nadal and Tomas Berdych, you would see Nadal has won the last five times they’ve met.  At 6’5″, Berdych has a bit of power off the ground.  Indeed, in his last match against Viktor Troicki, he won 6-1, 6-3.  More impressively, against Fernando Verdasco, in the previous round, he won 6-0, 6-3.  Berdych famously pushed Federer to five sets in the Australian Open a few years ago.  The guy has power off the ground.

However, if one wonders what Nadal was doing during his 6 week hiatus between the Australian Open and Indian Wells, you can see it now.  Nadal has been working on his aggression.  Rather than play too many neutral shots up the middle, stuff he does when he’s nervous and unwilling to go on the attack, Nadal is now pushing his stroke to one sideline or the other.  Unlike Federer, he’s not trying to hit outright winners.  He doesn’t mind that you get to a ball provided you give him a weak return, which he then hits hard for the winner.

Berdych started off struggling with Nadal’s spin and pace and got broken early.  On the verge of getting broken a second time in the first set, Berdych worked hard to hold serve.  He then got Nadal in trouble on his own serve and broke him, only to cede the break back and give Nadal the first set, 6-4.  By then, Berdych was able to hang in points, especially on his own serve.

In the second set, Nadal again broke early, but Berdych was able to play a 0-40 game on Nadal’s serve.  Nadal worked hard to win 2 more points, then played an awkward forehand that Nadal netted.  The two remained on serve until the tiebreak.

In the tiebreak, Berdych took an early lead, but then made a few errors.  These errors let Nadal catch up, then take the lead.  Nadal eventually took the tiebreak 7-4.  Ultimately, Nadal’s aggression off the ground, especially shots hit up-the-line gave Berdych a lot of trouble and Berdych just missed a little too much here and there.  Had he hit just a bit more sharp, Berdych might have forced a third set.

Nadal now looks pretty sharp, and with Federer and Davydenko out of the tournament, he now looks like a pretty good bet to defend his title.  Andy Murray has yet to have a really sharp match, though he continues a trend of opponents retiring mid-match against him, the latest opponent being Nicolas Almagro (Rafa was the one prior to that).

Rafa will next battle Ivan Ljubicic.  It does seem unlikely that Ivan will have the tools to beat Nadal.  The good news is Ljubicic often plays competitive against Nadal on hard courts, but Nadal leads their head to head, 5-1.

Tomorrow, Andy Murray will take on Robin Soderling.  Surprisingly, the two haven’t played since 2006, and Murray leads their head-to-head 2-1.  At that time, Murray had yet to make his breakthrough, which mostly occurred in 2008 (although he was already in the top 10 by 2008) and certainly Soderling whose big breakthrough came in 2009.  Soderling has the kind of big game that can bother Murray, and of all the quarterfinals, it’s the only one of the four where the expected seeds actually made it to their expected round.

Had the top 8 seeds made it, we would have seen Federer-Roddick (Roddick gets Robredo instead), Murray-Soderling, Djokovic-Cilic (it’s Ljubicic-Monaco), and Nadal-Davydenko (Nadal played Berdych instead).

Roddick will play Tommy Robredo tomorrow.  Roddick could be said to “own” Robredo.  Roddick has a 10-0 record over Robredo.  It says something that he’s beaten him twice on clay (both in Rome).  Even though Roddick has a huge record, and this psychological edge ought to hold, Robredo looked pretty solid against Baghdatis and so I think it’s possible that Robredo could upset Roddick.  Still, when someone has such a big head to head, you generally favor the one who leads it.  Roddick generally doesn’t have too many bad days.  He rarely plays lights out (whatever that might mean for him), and has been playing steady tennis, which is good for Roddick.

Oh yes, and Rafa Nadal?  He’s still alive in doubles.  Nadal and his partner Marc Lopez are in the semifinals of doubles.  He has an outside shot to meet Querrey and Isner (though they have to get past Zimonjic-Nestor, the number 1 seed).  Of all the players likely to pull off a singles and doubles win in the same tournament, you wouldn’t pick Rafa.  If Federer played more doubles, you might pick him, but he rarely plays doubles anymore.