Saturday’s first ATP semifinal at the BNP Paribas Open will be played between Milos Raonic [13] and Dominic Thiem [7], but the second match, the so-called semi-Fedal, is already getting much more attention. Still, even Rafael Nadal [2] is not confident his 39th match against Roger Federer [4] will take place in Indian Wells.

After experiencing knee pain in his quarterfinal match against Karen Khachanov [12], Rafael Nadal was vague when it came to the severity of the injury. He did take a medical time out and have a trainer come back out a second time during the two-set quarterfinal. Asked about the classic “Fedal” matchup that has already sent resale ticket prices soaring, Nadal did not express confidence he would be able to play.

Nadal did explicitly explain, that the press is quick to run with a story and that he was hesitant to engage. Asked directly if he intended to play, Nadal answered: “Hopefully. It's difficult for me to answer, but anything that I can answer, you can put it in a negative way.” Readers can interpret his words for themselves. He added “Nobody can guarantee anything about what can happen the next day because, in this world, anything can happen. But of course, my goal and my idea is be ready for tomorrow. Then happened what happened on court, so I cannot guarantee how I gonna wake up tomorrow morning.”

He did say “if” he should play Saturday, it would not be an any more meaningful tennis match than any other in ways that really matter: “At the end of the day is another tennis match, no? It's not that we are playing chess tomorrow. It's still a tennis match. Even if it's between us, even if it's more special than any other match, still a tennis match and the goal always is the same: Go on court and play at the highest level possible.”

Federer also resisted putting too much meaning into the matchup, which would be their first since 2017’, a year in which Federer beat the Spaniard in four tour matches. “I don't think those five matches matter that much, to be honest. A lot of time has gone by, unfortunately maybe for the rivalry for us, or for me. It's always better to keep on playing against him. He seems to me very good. He's at a higher level than he was at the Australian Open. He seems healthy. When Rafa is healthy, especially in a place like here in Indian Wells where he feels comfortable, he's clearly very tough to play. A lot has happened in those 18 months. Sure, you look back at what I did well there, but you can't just copy/paste and play exactly the same thing again.”

The first semifinal, between Thiem and Raonic, has a significantly leaner head to head. They have only played each other twice, and Thiem won both matches. The Austrian is not underestimating his opponent, despite a favorable track record: “He's very difficult to play, because he's good from the baseline. Moves not bad. So gonna try to take care of my serve. I tried this, to get through my serves well. Then of course there are going to be many games where I will have zero chance on his serve. But maybe once a set or once a match just going to open up a chance and then I try to be focused. But in general, going to be very difficult, because he's playing very well again, and his serve is always one of the best.”

Raonic knows what he needs to do to advance to the final: “With Dominic, you know, you can't give him too much time. He can do a lot of good things, get ahead in the point, and start to run you around a lot if he has time to get into a point and work it.”